


Why You Runnin'?

by MikaHaeli8



Category: Real Person Fiction, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blowjobs, British Slang & Spelling, Catharsis, Comic Relief, Drinking, Florists, Fluff, Haunted by the past, Hungover Zach, In Fact There Is Not Enough Eric Bana In Anything, In Which Karl and Eric Deny That They're Together, Karl is also a kitty, Language of Flowers, Mentions of Car Accidents, Minor Character Death, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Relationships, Rimming, Scars, Self Confidence Issues, Self Harm, Self-Beta'd, There Is Not Enough Eric Bana In Pinto Fics, hurt/ comfort, mentions of domestic abuse, references to injury, references to non-con, yeah me neither
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 23:23:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 21,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikaHaeli8/pseuds/MikaHaeli8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One wants to run, but can't. The other's already running and won't stop. Sooner or later, there's bound to be a collision and what are the results when it does happen? Slight AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://mikahaeli8.livejournal.com/)between December 2011 and March 2012. Will add tags and characters as I crosspost chapters (i.e. as I remember them). Feedback will be greatly welcomed, so go ahead :)

There wasn’t much in the English language that escaped Zach, no matter whether the dialect was American, Canadian, British or Australasian. He was fairly proud of this fact, perhaps a little too much at times, and his friends were always sure to point this out, sometimes sarcastically, sometimes not.

One aspect of language that he could not get his Italian/Irish-American head around, however, was that of flowers. He had lost his temper with Jon for what he now realised was no reason whatsoever, and he had to find a way to say something he wasn’t very good at saying – sorry. He knew what Jon liked – at least he had _that_ advantage on his side.

What he didn’t know was how to transfer his apologies and Jon’s likes into petal-shaped objects, which left him a little embarrassed, to say the least. This guy was his _boyfriend_ , for goodness’ sake. They’d been dating for a fairly solid amount of time and Jon was definitely a flower guy; Zach should really _know_ what the guy liked by now.

He scratched the back of his neck in anxiety, face turning seven shades of Irish red, contrasting nicely with his dark hair. He was stuck as he settled his gaze on the different shapes, sizes and colours of flowers that were available on offer.

He was stuck, but he’d never admit –

“Can I help you?”

Zach flinched as the warm, gravelly voice reached his ears. Resisting the awkward teenage shyness that was threatening to squeeze his eyes shut, he turned slowly…

…and fell into the purest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

_No. Focus, Quinto._

He swallowed, attempting to regain his composure. “Yeah. Um. I. I’m…looking. For…some…flowers.”

“Well, no kidding. That _is_ why you’re here, right?” The young man smiled and Zach couldn’t help but look at those eyes again because by no means was Zach Catholic but his brain churned out a breathless _ohmygoodGodhe’sgotlaughterlines._ He blinked a couple of times, chastising himself. _Stop it, you’re a taken man. Stop it._

“Uhm.” Zach utters a little laugh, wondering why his face hasn’t burst into flame and set the whole shop alight yet. “Yeah, but. I…hurt someone recently and…I need to say sorry.”

The young man nodded in understanding. “Ah. One of those occasions. A friend? Family? Co-worker? Romantic partner?” He winced at the slightly sour look on Zach’s face. “Sorry…Too personal?”

“Oh! Uh. No. Not in the slightest,” Zach stammered, wondering if he’d left eloquence under the bed this morning. “It’s the last. A romantic partner.”

He could swear he heard a ‘lucky you’ from the young man before his real reply: “Okay, well…I mean, I’m here to help, but I can’t do that unless you help _me_. So, let’s start easy…What’s their favourite colour, or if we go plural, what are their favourite colours?”

As Zach and the young man – whose name was on a badge, but the older man hadn’t had a chance to look at it – organised a simple bouquet, Zach felt his shyness dissipate in front of this stranger. This was achieved with as minimal eye contact as possible…or so the older man thought, given that he knew he’d lose the power of speech if he looked into those electric blues again.

“Okay, that’s $33.45,”

“Sure,” Zach said absently, fumbling around in his wallet. “Am I good to pay by card?”

“Yeah, absolutely, let me just find the machine…” The young man disappeared behind the counter for a minute before returning with a rounded-edged black box. “Just put your card in here…Thankyou…If you’d like to enter your PIN?”

Zach duly did so, desperately attempting to keep his throat wet in this guy’s presence. When the machine told him to, he took the card out, a receipt emerging in the young man’s hand.

 _I can think of something else that would emerge in your hand_ , Zach thought idly, flinching again at the thought as the blue-eyed man behind the till handed him his receipt.

“Uh. Thanks,” the older man said quietly, taking the bouquet, turning and leaving before either his body language or his usually calm mind could further betray him.

“Thanks. Hope it all works out!” Chris called after him, but he didn’t appear to have heard. His shoulders fell in an invisible sigh, heart inexplicably falling just as much.

“A customer?”

“Yeah, no kidding. A cute one at that.” The younger man instantly clenched his jaw shut at the last addition. “Shit. Shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have betrayed _…_ ”

 _He still can’t say Ray’s name._ Zoe looked at him with sorrow, her voice softening. “Chris…I know it probably doesn’t feel like it, but…it’s been a year and a half since the accident. Don’t you…” She bit the tip of her tongue, wondering how to phrase what she wanted to say.

Her employee turned to her, eyes steely, voice uncharacteristically hard. “Don’t I _what?_ Think it’s time to move on? Think it’s time I got over the guilt? Don’t I _w-what_?” He pushed his fists fiercely into his eyes, voice cracking at the end.

Zoe kept her breathing even as her employee struggled to keep his, suppressing her temper. Eventually, Chris balled his hands by his sides, staring at the floor.

“I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said that,” he mumbled, pushing past his boss and striding off to the staffroom, presumably to grab his cigarettes, just as Anton entered through the back. He looked at Chris’ retreating back before at Zoe, eyebrows raised in confusion.

Zoe just gave him a look that explained nothing.

 _Seems like that guy isn’t the_ only _one who finds it hard to say sorry._


	2. Chapter 2

The flat was quiet when Zach arrived home, flowers in the curled crook of his elbow. He stopped outside his door, listening for sounds of activity within the building, not being at all surprised when he heard none. It _was_ the middle of the day, after all – he’d imagine Jon would be at work right now.

Uttering a sigh and dropping his head, he shoved his key in the lock and twisted it, slipping inside like a thief and clicking it shut behind him. He looked at the time – one in the afternoon – and decided that maybe _now_ would be a good time to get on top of the stack of paperwork he had to do for Before The Door. Being a producer was more work than expected, but he enjoyed the challenge.

Additionally, it would remove his mind from the clear but troubled blue eyes of the florist guy from earlier.

~x~

_Some hours later_

“Chris. Chris. _Chris_. CHRISTOPHER!”

“Jesus, _what?_ ”

“You were thinking about him, weren’t you?”

“About who?”

“Oooh, Christopher Pine, you liar. That guy from earlier. You know, the tall one with great cheekbones and hipster glasses?”

“He was wearing glasses?...Oh, don’t look at me like that,”

“I’m your boss, I can look at you however I please,”

“That’s harassment, y’know,”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “You know I’m kidding, you’ve worked for me long enough. Anyway…you do realise you can go now? Your shift ended half an hour ago,”

Chris let out a little ‘oh’ as he looked at the time. “Um. Right. Kay,” he muttered as he moved to grab his stuff, heart sinking. The florist’s had become his only solace for the last year and a half. He could lose himself in the different colours, shapes and faint scents of the diverse floral species in the building; they made him _forget_ the empty, still, silent home waiting for him after his shift was over. Giving people pleasure was the only way he forgot his pain.

On the way home, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head so he could get a better look, he realised he was looking almost directly into someone else’s second-floor apartment. Unable to tear his eyes away, his brain filled with the sight of two figures embracing tightly. What kind of embrace, Chris couldn’t tell, but from his view, it looked pretty intimate.

After a while, one of the figures suddenly broke the embrace and approached the window, the afternoon light throwing his features into recognition.

“Fuck,” Chris whispered as he did indeed recognise the man at the window, whipping his head back down and walking on, lengthening his stride as much as he could, struggling to remain calm as the guy from earlier whose name he never caught stared after Chris as he ran.

~x~

“Zach? Um…did you hear…”

Zach tore himself away from the window and turned to face his boyfriend ( _ex-boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, don’t forget the prefix_ ). He nodded, swallowing, stomach seeming to cave in on itself. He just wanted out – whether he left or Jon left, he didn’t care. He just wanted to be alone.

“S-so…I’ll take what I can now…get some boxes…come back tomorrow – ”

“Yeah. Alright.” Zach waved a hand, cutting off the younger man’s words. “Just…just go.”

Jon nodded, his jaw tight but his eyes bright, betraying what he wouldn’t say. Their relationship had been steadily, quietly dissolving for a while, but it was Zach’s losing his temper the previous night that had evaporated the final drops. The process was sped along by the fact that Jon had met someone else in the last few months.

_Met someone else._

Zach would be thankful if he never heard that excuse again.

~x~

Chris clicked his apartment door shut and locked it, just to calm the little worm of grief-induced neuroticism in his diaphragm. Exhaling, he took a moment to let the silence of the apartment settle like dust on his shoulders before moving to the kitchen and dumping his jacket on the table.

The next few hours passed in a blur as he cooked, ate and cleaned up, answering buzzing phones and texts from various people. If the activities sounded mundane, it was because they were. Since the accident that had claimed Ray, Chris’ standards of exciting activity had raised so high the bar could no longer be seen, no matter how much he or anyone else tried to lower them.

Suddenly, his answering machine beeped, snapping him out of his reverie.

“ _Hey sweetie, it’s Mum…Just wondering how you’re doing. We haven’t seen you since Katie’s party and – well – we’re…we’re just worried, okay? You know we’re here if you need anything, right? Call me. Call us._ ” A small sigh. She sounded worried, strained, and Chris wondered if something had happened that she wasn’t telling him. “ _Alright, well. We love you. Bye._ ”

Chris uttered an unintelligible sound and hauled himself off the sofa. He’d do it tomorrow, he promised himself. He’d call Mum tomorrow. He knew he’d break that promise tomorrow, just as he did every day.

He looked at the time, suddenly realising how tired he was. Nine-thirty, and he had the early shift tomorrow – John was on holiday with Kerri, he remembered with a slight stab of jealousy, and Chris had offered to cover for him.

_Jealousy?_

Chris knelt in front of the one photo of Ray that remained, thumbing the flat, cold cheek of the depicted young man.

“Why’d you go, Ray?” he murmured rhetorically, caressing the glass as he straightened up, stripped, turned off the light and curled up under the blankets, arm outstretched, flat against the empty space next to him.

_What have you done to me?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's read this, especially the person who subscribed ( <3 to you). If you want to comment, that's also fine. Comments are welcome. Hint hint. ~Mika

**_Three months later_ **

“Ohhh no, mate,” was the immediate response Zach got when he proffered his dilemma.

“Definitely not,” was added from the other person.

“You do _not_ want to be starting something with an employee of somewhere you visit quite regularly, by the sounds of it. Could end badly. Could get awkward,”

“Thanks for the support!” Zach layered on the sarcasm as he leaned back and lit up, trying to avoid the scrutinising gazes of the two Australasians opposite him. “So tell me, can you two afford surgery to graft yourselves together yet?”

“Oh, _very_ funny, Quinto,” Karl replied, taking a mock swipe at the man on the opposite table. “For the record, there is _nothing_ going on between us,”

“Which explains why you two have been inseparable since you met, right?” Zach took a drag from his shrinking cigarette. “May I remind you that it was through me? So, Urban, Bana, why are you both turning a gorgeous shade of sunburned red?”

“Because shut up,” Eric replied, taking a swipe at the younger man and succeeding in hitting him this time.

“Ohhh, Eric, _burrrn_.” Zach rolled his eyes, a laugh in his voice. “So, back to what I actually _came_ to you about, you guys think no?”

“I most definitely think no,” Karl shot back. “Even though he sounds pretty hot from what you’ve told us. And you’ve always been a sucker for the icy blues,”

Zach could have sworn he saw Eric narrow his eyes briefly at Karl’s assessment of Chris, but put it out of his mind. “May I ask why? Apart from, y’know, I go to Bergman’s all the time for flowers and stuff.”

In perfect unison, the two men looked at eachother and shrugged.

“Well, we can’t tell you what to do,” Karl started.

“But we’ve heard about Chris before, actually,” Eric continued.

Karl shot the other man a quizzical look. “We have?”

“Yeah, you remember…there was that nasty incident – ”

“Yeah, we’ve heard!” Karl cut in, suddenly remembering. “How long ago was that?”

“Almost two years, I believe – ”

“Alright, Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Zach cut in, irritated by both their denial and their cryptic dialogue. “What happened two years ago?”

“Two years ago?” Karl began, as it tended to do.

“That would be…2009,”

“Yes. Well, things happened in 2009. The sun rose and set 365 times in a row, clock hands around the world met eight thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five-point-nine-rounded-up times – ”

“Oh, you two. I should have known better than to ask _you_ for advice.” Zach huffed dramatically, swept his things up and left without a word, leaving the two older men to look at each other, simultaneously puzzled and amused.

“You think we annoyed him, Karl?”

“I think we annoyed him more than was sufficient, Eric.”

“Mission accomplished,” Karl concluded, poking Eric in the side, who jumped and then poked the other man in the same spot, giggling and thus starting a very public poke war.

~x~

**_The other side of Los Angeles_ **

“Are you _kidding_ me?” the older woman yelped.

“Thanks for the support, sis!” Chris rolled his eyes, leaning back on the sofa. He only remembered how poofy it was when he nearly vanished into it, and quickly, he leaned forward again, clasped hands on knees.

“Noooo, that wasn’t what I meant at all.” Katie waved her hands to emphasise her point, looking very flushed. “I mean…Okay, maybe I overreacted a bit,”

“A _bit?_ ” This was accompanied by an arched brow.

“Oh, c’mon, I just – It’s been nearly two years. Are you sure you’re ready?”

Chris looked back down, licking his lips slowly as he mulled that question over in his mind. There was still some part of him that was holding on to what had been before That Day two years ago, he accepted that. The larger part of him that wasn’t holding on, however, knew it was at least time to take steps away from that period of time and move on with his life.

Mistaking his silence for resistance, Katie sat back down, psychiatrist body language and expressions now fully, if unconsciously, in place. “Look, Chris. I just don’t want to see you rush out there and…get hurt again. Remember what happened with Mum after she and Dad divorced and she tried again…?” She swallowed, wringing her hands. “How well do you know this…this Zach?”

“I don’t,” Chris replied hoarsely, trying both coughing and swallowing to clear his throat. “But there’s something…I don’t know. I _want_ to. At the same time…”

“Okay,” his sister said quietly as she took it all in. “I…I can’t tell you what to do. You know that. But Chris, honestly, promise me just _one_ thing.”

Frowning, the younger man looked at his sister. “What?”

“That you won’t rush into it and if he hurts you, I get first dibs on kicking his arse,”

“That’s _two_ thi – ”Chris let out an unexpectedly genuine laugh as he realised what else his sister had asked. “You can have first dibs. If I don’t first,”

Katie chuckled back, shaking her head. “You? No offence, little bro, but you couldn’t hurt a fly,”

Chris stared at her for several long moments before uttering a soft, disbelieving “Bullshit.”

Having nothing more to say to him, Katie gave her brother a playful whack on the arm as she went to answer the phone, which had just sprung into life.

“That _hurt_ , by the way!” Chris yelled after her.

“That was the point, by the way!” Katie replied.

“Oooh, get you and your syntactic parallelism,”

“Oooh, get _you_ and your ten-dollar words,”

Chris chuckled, seeing himself out as his sister turned her attention to whoever was on the other end of the phone. As he drove home, his brain turned over the advice Katie had given him. He only managed to highlight pieces of what she’d said – _Don’t rush into it, don’t get hurt, are you sure?_

Frustrated, he shook his head at the contradictions between the first two. Even if he _did_ go for it, hurt was inevitable whether acceptance or rejection was the consequence. Besides, Ray was still present in his life, although he was becoming more of a shadow in Chris’ mind than the unfilled dent in his bed of two years past.

Chris didn’t know how this made him feel, which was a development from past emotions.

Maybe it _was_ time to move on after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Zach regretted that green liquid shot as soon as he swallowed it. He was drunk enough already, and he knew it. He had also arrived to this event alone, which was bad enough in itself, but his Irish genes kicked in upon laying eyes on the vast table of alcohol, which was practically bending under the weight of coloured glass and liquid on top of it.

He’d then proceeded to sample each and every bottle on the table, never mind whether the next was the same as the last so he’d have five glasses of the same red on the trot, which was generally a bad idea for anyone –

“Sorry,” a voice mumbled at the elbow on his glass-holding hand as the owner accidentally bumped it.

Zach frowned, trying to focus his eyes. Everything was too sharp, too bright, as if his eyes had been fitted with some sharper definition, higher than HD. He was sure if he stared hard enough, he could see the individual pores of the guy in front of him –

_Wait, the guy in front of me?_

“Hello? You alright?”

_Western accent, badly-hidden acne scars – don’t say that out loud, Quinto – small nose, really fucking nice lips – wait –_

“Hey, it’s you!”

Zach dragged his head up and managed to get it so he was eye level with the young man in front, managing to utter a response: “Hey, it’s you back! Flower Guy!”

Flower Guy nodded, quite stiffly, or so Zach thought. He felt something tilt to one side in that space between his diaphragm and his stomach, and he didn’t know whether it was alcohol or gut instinct but he didn’t want to question it.

“I’m Chris,”

“Ahh Chris. Not Flower Guy then?” _Stop talking, Zach._

“Nope. Not Flower Guy. Though you’re not the first.” His eyes were smiling. Zach saw little crinkles at the corners of them and decided he liked them; that he should try and get Chris to show them more.

“You sober?” Zach was honestly surprised that he wasn’t wobbling all over the place. Keeping his eyes trained on Flower Guy’s – _Chris_ ’ – face, his left hand searched for something solid to lean on.

“Why, you need a ride?” Chris replied, not really answering Zach’s question. The inebriated man could tell by the size of the other’s pupils and his breath that he wasn’t drunk; had barely touched a drop, if anything.

“Um. Mmm. Mmhmm.” For some reason, Zach couldn’t get his lips to open. Chris did not look very impressed by the other’s behaviour, but at least Zach hadn’t given in to his animal desires and jumped him right there and then.

To Chris’ credit, his distaste was concealed well. “C’mon then. I gotta go as well. Got the early shift tomorrow.”

“Gotta feed the hydrogen…Hydra…hydrogenas before they get all rampant and shit?”

“Hydrangeas? Yeah, they’re dangerous if you feed them after opening time.” There was a smile in the younger man’s voice, and Zach saw those eye-crinkles again.

 _Success,_ he thought to himself, just as he realised what Chris had said, replying with “Oh my God! They’re like…the furry things in…that film…thing.”

“Oh! I know what you mean. Those little furry things that if you feed them after midnight, they turn into horrible evil creatures?”

“Dude. No.” By this point, the men were outside and Zach, clinging onto the outside of the taxi with one hand, shook a finger sharply at Chris with the other. “They weren’t _dangerous_. They just needed, like…They were misunderstood. Remember the Disney bit?”

“Get in, man,” Chris chuckled, shaking his head. Zach withheld his argument for the moment as he less got in than collapsed onto the back, long limbs sprawled everywhere. With a little help from the other man, he managed to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position, feeling like the seat was sucking him in.

A few minutes into the journey, he sprung up straight again, suddenly remembering what he’d been arguing about with Chris prior to the journey.

“The _Snow White_ “hi-hooooooo!” bit! Remember that?”

Chris clicked his fingers, turning to face him, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, I _do_! They were singing along and shit. Totally bizarre thing to watch, scared the shit out of me at the time,”

“Really?”

“Hey, don’t make fun of me.” In the strokes of street lamps as the cab passed it, Zach could see a faint blush suffusing Chris’ face. “I was a sensitive kid,”

“Still sensitive now, going by that reaction.” Zach grinned, suddenly feeling an uncontrollable urge to poke the other man. Which he then proceeded to do, shaving a good twenty years off his age.

At first, Chris ignored it, lost as he was in his own thoughts, even though he knew he shouldn’t really remain there for too long as ultimately, it would all lead back to several things including…a persistent finger in his side, apparently.

“Hey, man, stop that,” he grunted, finding that he was only half-serious and fighting the urge to reciprocate the action.

“No!” Zach replied childishly, scrunching his eyes shut and blowing a raspberry.

“ _How_ old are you?” Chris smirked, caving to the urge and poking him back.

“You should never ask a woman her age,” Zach replied, much more in control of his speech and language centres than he was ten minutes ago.

“Oh, so you’re a woman now?”

“Be quiet,”

“No!” Chris replied, just as Zach poked back. With lightning speed, he grabbed both the brunette’s wrists (partly in case Zach remembered he had _two_ hands instead of one and decided to use the other one to poke him with). It took Zach a few seconds to realise Chris had his wrists in a very tight grip.

“Aww,” was how he verbally responded to this situation, albeit weakly. What wasn’t worthy of an ‘aww’, however, was the proximity of their faces, and Zach was enchanted by how intensely _blue_ Chris’ eyes were. He was caught like a deer in aquamarine lights, inches from being run over.

Chris smirked again. “You’re not gonna fight?”

Zach’s eyes narrowed even as they roamed all over the other man’s face. “Is that a challenge, Chris?”

Chris took several long, lazy moments to stroke Zach’s face with his own gaze before deigning to reply. “Only if you _want_ it to be…Zach,”

Zach couldn’t help it. The way his name slipped out the other man’s lips as well as the languid pause before it sent shivers that went straight between his hips, despite the alcohol. Snapping back to reality, he wrestled with Chris for several minutes, staying unsuccessful in breaking his arms free from the blue-eyed man’s vice-like grip before the taxi suddenly braked to a stop outside his block of flats.

It was, in hindsight, a good thing too, as by the time the taxi _did_ screech to a halt, their noses were mere millimetres apart, their pupils winning a fight against their irises for eye space.

Chris abruptly let go and Zach dived for his wallet.

“How much is it gonna be by the time it gets to…his place?” he asked the driver.

“No, man, don’t worry about it – ” Chris began, but was cut off.

“Hey. You were kind enough to offer, so I’ll go halves. Right?”

A flicker crossed Chris’ face – of what, Zach couldn’t tell. “Exactly. I offered, so I’ll pay.”

Ignoring this, Zach crammed a twenty into Chris’ hand. “Look. Just take this, and don’t worry about repaying me. Okay?”

Running his tongue over his lips, Chris huffed. “Fine.”

“Thankyou. Thanks for the offer and see you ‘round.” He had to go before he caved in to his urges and jumped the other man right there and then.

“No problem. See ya!” Chris called after him, but Zach had already _whump_ ed the door shut by the time he’d gotten to the second half of his sentence.

Chris spent the rest of the taxi ride mentally chastising himself. For what, he wasn’t quite sure, but he _knew_ it was something to do with Zach.

That night, for the first time since the accident happened, he didn’t have a single nightmare. In fact, Chris barely dreamt at all, and he didn’t know why.

All he knew was that this was a relief.


	5. Chapter 5

Chris had no sooner finished preparing the shop for opening time when Anton literally swayed in, clocked in and shoved his coat in a locker.

“ _Heeeeey_ , Chris,” he practically sang.

“Hey, Anton,” Chris murmured back, making the last necessary checks and closing the black book he was writing in. “Didn’t see you at the shindig last night,”

“Naah, I had a date,”

“Oh?” Chris half turned. “How’d that go?”

Anton was trying much harder than necessary to hide the grin concealed in his voice. “Crazily enough, she wants to see me again, so I’m taking her up on that again this time next week!”

“Hey man, that’s awesome,” Chris said by way of congratulations, Anton’s happiness bringing out a grin of his own. “So tell me ‘bout her. She hot?”

“Back off, Pine, you can’t have this one,” the younger man joked. “She is, _and_ she’s smart,”

Chris’ jaw mock-dropped in exaggerated surprise. “These women _exist_?”

“But what about _you_?” Anton swatted Chris’ teasing away. “I heard the Hispanic guy who was in here a few days ago was all over you last night,”

“Zach?” Chris instinctively replied, before clamping his jaw shut, noticing how the younger man had folded his arms and was now looking at him with an expression of smug satisfaction. “Hey, not like that. He was very, very drunk and needed to go home, it was late and I started at six today, so we shared a cab,”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” Anton laughed, ducking a swipe from the seated brunette.

“All right, guys, the shop opens in five, stop flirting with each other,” a sarcastic female voice cut in suddenly.

“I wa – He was – I – ” Chris began, a flush suffusing his cheeks.

“I was teasing him about the Hispanic dude from last week,” Anton admitted, slightly cowering into himself. He had good reason to – Zoe could be _very_ scary at times.

“Alright, but Chris, please don’t kill Anton. Speaking of which – you – ” she pointed to Anton “ – are on tills today, so get to ‘t!”

Anton shot off like a rocket before anyone could blink.

Chris turned to face his boss. “Does this mean I’m on delivery and stock then?”

“That it does.” Zoe seemed to soften a touch. “So, don’t sue me for prying or anything, but _did_ that guy make a move on you?”

“ _No_ , Zoe, he was drunk and I had this shift, so…uh, we shared a cab.”

Whilst detecting a hint of wistfulness in his voice – _Eric was right, it_ is _mutual_ – Zoe stared at her employee as if he’d spoken Swahili. “Are you with him yet?”

A frown from the young man. “Uhh, no. Stop staring at me like that!”

Zoe lowered her voice to a hiss. “Why not? He’s _hot!_ ”

Chris was saved from answering that by the shrill ringing of the store’s phone. Zoe made noises and disappeared, leaving him alone for a few minutes, his mind turning.

~x~

A few hours later, Zach woke up. Not in his soft, comfortable bed as he expected, Noah’s warm, furry body next to him (no matter how much he tried, he could not keep that dog off the bed, and he was too soft to introduce stricter measures), but on the hard floor of his living room, Noah licking his face as if hoping to find breakfast there and Harold opposite, disapproving.

Zach blinked a few times, using every iota of strength to push himself off the floor, wondering why there was a large, purple bruise on his cheek. Without thinking – not that he could with a head full of what felt like cotton wool – he prodded it, sending waves of dull pain through his face.

“Ow,” he mumbled, head spinning as it was lifted and straightened to its usual height. He squeezed his eyes shut, blindly groping for something solid to hold on to, just so that he didn’t fall over. _Make it to the kitchen, you can make it to the kitchen, it’s okay, hold on, just_ –

Just then, the doorbell exploded.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Zach groaned, practically hobbling his way to the door, grabbing his sunglasses as he went.

“Holy Dooley, mate, you look like you’re gonna keel over any sec,” an Antipodean twang greeted him.

The next sound Zach made came out as something like “Unghkarl,”

“Wrong one, Zach!” Not-Karl said cheerfully, somehow deciphering the strangled noise. “We gonna stand here all day or…”

Zach stepped back, allowing Eric in, and shutting the door behind him, took his sunglasses off now the piercing natural light was gone. “What d’you want, Eric?”

“So I heard you got drunk and blew the guy you’ve been drooling over for the last three, almost four months in the back of the cab on the way home,” Eric shot straight back as a way of reply.

Zach just stared at him. Trust the Australian to put it bluntly. “God, Eric, I wish that had happened, but no. I got drunk, yes. I made a total spectacle of myself in front of aforementioned guy, but didn’t blow him. Although, looking at his lips – ”

“Ahhh okay! That’s enough!” Eric loudly declared, cutting him off with a single swipe of his hand. “I don’t wanna know!”

Zach smirked, head finally beginning to clear. “Aww, diddums. Does Karl not blow you enough?”

Eric scowled at him. “For the last time, we are – ”

“Not together, sure, sure.” Zach finally found the pills he was looking for. Breaking two out of their foil-lidded prisons, he poured himself some water and swallowed them. “Where is he now, then?”

“Shopping,”

“ _Shopping?_ Food shopping?”

“Enough about Karl.” In fairness, the Antipodean _was_ beginning to sound irritated and Zach was sure it would really hurt if he was slapped – or punched – by the other man.

“Eric, why are you here?” Zach leaned against the kitchen counter, hands gripped on the edge. “If you don’t give me a reason, you’re out,”

“Awww.” Eric pouted. “Diddums. Did _you_ not get blown last night?”

Zach scowled, but supposed he deserved it.

“Right. You _reeeeeeeeeally_ like that guy. And from what I’ve heard – from anonymous sources – ”

“Anonymous as in, ‘you’ve paid them’,” Zach replied drily.

“Ridgy-didge. SO! Anyway, that guy _reeeeeeeeeeeeally_ likes you. But in case you haven’t realised, Zachary John Quinto, we are in fact not in high school any more, therefore you two need to stop mooning over each other like ladies do over me,”

“Clearly.” Zach rolled his eyes.

“You know it.” Eric pushed himself off the table. “So, you two need a bit of a push. Aforementioned source is currently working on your man, and…ba daah! I’m here to help _you_.”

Zach just stared at the older man. “Makes you think I want help?”

Eric raised an eyebrow as if to say, _seriously?_

“Eriiiiiiiiic,” Zach groaned, crossing the kitchen to the island, folding his arms on it and _donk_ ing his head on aforementioned folded arms, “I’m a thirty-four-year old man, not a sixteen year old girl,”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Fucking really, asshole,”

Eric rolled his eyes. “You’re acting like one now,”

Zach gave a sigh, his shoulders heaving.

“If I agree, will you leave me alone?”

Eric chuckled, knowing he’d been successful in wearing his friend down. “Maybe,”

“Change ‘maybe’ to ‘yes’ and I’ll agree,”

Eric’s eyebrows raised, not that Zach saw. “Really?”

“For realsies,” Zach mumbled against the counter. He suddenly felt a _whump_ on his back as the other man grabbed and squeezed him in what could only be described as a bear hug.

“Mate, did I ever tell you how much I love you? Because I do. I love you _soooo_ much –”

“Guhhh. Get out and leave me to die already.”

The taller man released him, beginning to leave. “Getting out and leaving you to WAIIIT A SECOND.” He turned, pointing a finger at a motionless Zach, still slumped over the island. “No. You’re not dying without some kind of arrangement with this guy. And I’d suggest you do it sooner or later, and when I say ‘sooner or later’, I mean ‘today’. Florist’s shuts at seven. You’ve got six hours.”

“Or?” Zach lifted his head, turning to face Eric again.

“Or I come back again tomorrow and the next day and the next day after and – ”

“Point taken.” _Wait a second…_ “How will you know?”

Eric pointed two fingers at his eyes, then pointed them at Zach. “Oh, I have my sources. See you later, mate!”

Zach allowed the door to slam before once again _donk_ ing his head back down. Six hours. He had six hours to actually speak in coherent sentences to Flower Guy – _Chris_ – or Eric would become his very own personal _Groundhog Day_.

He groaned. The man sure knew how to set up an ultimatum.


	6. Chapter 6

**_Back at the florist’s…_ **

“Shitshitshitshitshitshit…” Zoe cursed as she dug through her bag, feeling her phone buzz. She had the feeling it would stop ringing at any minute, and if it was Keith with an emergency –

She yelled in triumph when her hand finally grasped the little plastic box. She flipped it open and pressed it to her ear, not checking the caller ID.

“Zoe Saldana.”

“Heeey Zo, it’s Eric here,”

“Eric?” It took the young woman a moment to realise. “Oh, _Eric_. Yes, hi, how are you?”

“Couldn’t be better. Listen – I’ve got Zach to agree to go down to Bergman’s later,”

Zoe couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She ducked into her office and clicked her door shut, despite knowing Chris was out back, so he couldn’t hear, and Anton was at tills, so he couldn’t tell Chris. “You _did?_ My God, thanks Eric, that is actually brilliant. I owe you for this,”

“You _know_ you do,” he purred.

“Eric, seriously, if I rolled my eyes any harder, I’d need surgery,” she replied, her tone hard in sarcasm.

“Ow, my ears. That _burned_ , Zo.”

“Oh what, you need Karl to rub some ointment on them?”

“For the last time, we are _not_ together! Where’s everyone getting that idea from?”

Zoe snickered with laughter. “From what I’ve heard, you two are so fabulously gay together, it’s not even funny. But whatever, I don’t wanna know about whether you’re screwing Karl or not. You know what time Zach’s coming down?”

“Not a clue. I just know – hang on – ” There were murmurs in the background before he came back. “Look, I gotta go, but one more thing.”

“What?”

“Zach’s Italian, not Hispanic or Latino. Tell Anton that for me,”

Zoe’s mind churned as she snapped the phone shut.

_How does he know Anton?_

~x~

“…and so the blue violets would complement the rue, not just in meaning, but in colour.”

The young woman smiled with evident relief. “Thank you so much! Um, could I…order it now to be delivered in a few days?”

Chris smiled. “Not a problem. If you speak to John on tills, he’ll be happy to help you. He’s more of an expert on that side of things than I am!”

The woman laughed with him. “Okay. Thanks, bye.”

“Bye,” Chris replied, glancing at his watch. Two minutes to four – he might as well disappear now, winding up his shift. That is, if Zoe didn’t want anything else, like cover John Cho for his break. John was relatively new at Bergman’s, having moved to LA only six months ago, so he wound up on tills most of his shifts. Most days, like today, he took over after Anton had finished his shift.

“Hey, John, I’m just going,” he muttered to the older man as he was on his way out back.

“Sure. See you Monday,” John replied, flashing a brief smile before turning back to the customers.

“Busy day today,” Zoe commented as the younger man passed, pleased as punch. “Hasn’t been like this since July,”

“It’s John, he’s got a way with people,” Chris joked as he punched out, unlocking his locker and grabbing his stuff.

“And when you say ‘people’?” Zoe arched an eyebrow.

“I mean _people_ , of course. What did you think I meant?” Chris stuck his tongue out, eyes crinkling.

Zoe swiped playfully at her employee just as John popped into view, eyes wide.

“Hey, Chris, there’s some guy asking for you. Don’t know his name,”

“Is he tall and dark, by any chance?” the blue-eyed man asked.

John nodded.

“‘Kay, thanks John, I’ll be right there. See you Monday, Zoe,”

“See you Monday!” Zoe called to the back of the departing man, clenching a fist, pulling it down and quietly hissing a “yessss!” once Chris was out of earshot.

Then she noticed John was looking at her in confusion.

“I’ll fill you in later,” she told him.

~x~

Zach looked up as soon as he saw Chris. Despite his current photosensitivity (not a reference to paparazzi photographs of _any_ kind), he’d taken his sunglasses off so as to be able to see the man himself. Who was looking at him with an expression of surprise.

“Oh, hey. Zach.”

Chris didn’t seem too thrilled to see him. Zach swallowed.

“Hey. Uh. You just finished?”

“Yeah. I…Let’s talk outside.” For some reason, Chris suddenly felt self-conscious, as if everyone in the store had stopped what they were doing to stare at him.

“You ‘kay?” Zach asked, the other man’s worry plainly written on his face.

“Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ that?” Chris’ tone was more playful than his words implied. “How’s the head today?”

Zach rubbed his eyes, blinking in the sunlight. “I won’t lie to you, it’s fucking killing me. You mind if I put my sunglasses back on?”

“Course not. So why did you risk further injury to yourself to see me?”

Zach had the words, but they were refusing to come out for some reason. Chris stopped. Almost simultaneously, so did he.

“It wasn’t to pay me back for last night, was it? Because I said – ”

“No! Um, no. Not at all.” Zach cleared his throat, knowing it would only make it sorer. “I was…uh. Are you free tonight?”

A brief frown passed over Chris’ face for a second, tongue slowly moving over full lips. Zach couldn’t help but be entranced, his dick stirring despite the hangover.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Do…do you wanna…” _Oh, come on, Quinto. Did that eloquence disappear along with half your brain last night?_ “Do you want to come out with me for a drink tonight?” _Good boy. That’s it._

“For a drink?” Chris echoed. “Uh, I don’t drink.”

“I didn’t mean a literal…drink. Ugh – ” Zach smacked himself on the head, which sent painful aftershocks through it. “But, you know. Just come out with me. I’m not gonna make you do shots or anything.” _Nice going, Zach._

“Um…” Behind his lips, Chris bit the tip of his tongue. “What’s your number? I’ll call you whether I’m available or not – can’t remember off the top of my head right now. Won’t keep you waiting,”

“So considerate,” Zach muttered sarcastically.

“Ooh, do I detect sarcasm there?” Chris replied, fighting the inexplicable urge to poke the other man.

“Not at _all_.” Zach stuck his tongue out.

The two men exchanged numbers and conversed for a while before they reached a crossroads. Bidding goodbye to each other, they went their respective ways.

Chris couldn’t help but look at Zach’s retreating back, wondering what the hell Fate was playing at lately.

~x~

**_Later…_ **

“ _Yes_ , asshole.”

“Katie – ”

“Christopher, you’re my brother and I love you to the ends of the earth, but when you get an opportunity like that, you’d better not waste it, do you know what I mean?”

Chris sighed. “So you don’t think it’s too soon? You don’t think I’m betraying Ray by doing this?”

Over the phone, Katie sighed, her tone softening. “It’s been two years, Chris. Personally, I don’t think it’s too soon, but it’s completely up to you. It’s your life we’re talking, not mine. And if I remember Ray as much as I do …he was never one to dwell on anything, and wanted the same for you. I think…I think he’d be thrilled that you were moving on. Honestly. The accident wasn’t your fault at all.”

Feeling tears surge at the phrase ‘the accident’, Chris pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut until they settled again. “‘Kay, Katie. Thanks.”

“No problem, bro.” Chris could practically hear the smile in her voice. “Although, let me know how it goes, alright? And I still get first dibs on ass-kicking if he makes you cry at the end?”

Chris couldn’t help but laugh. “Always, Kat. Always. See you next week.”

“See ya,”

As soon as the line disconnected, Chris scrolled through his contacts until he found Zach’s number, feeling more confident than he had several hours previously.

“Hey, Zach? It’s Chris. Yeah, I’m fine…I was just calling to say I am free tonight – I did have plans but got cancelled on. Where and what time d’you wanna meet?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **TW: SELF HARM.** Not until the end of the chapter, but PLEASE don't read this if it's going to be a trigger for you. I do not want angry messages saying I did not warn you.

“So I’m not overdressed?”

“Chris, you look _fine_. Honestly.”

“Seriously? ‘Cause I feel like I’m more going to a dinner somewhere than a drink at – ”

“Wait, I thought you _were_ going for dinner?”

“No, just a drink,”

“But you don’t drink. Haven’t done for two years,”

Chris sighed, shoulders dropping. “I’m not…drinking. And given how drunk he was last night, I’m surprised that he wants to again tonight,”

“Have you ever thought that people go out to be _social_ , not just to drink?” There was an edge of sarcasm in Zoe’s voice, despite the quirk in a corner of her lips.

Chris gave her a range of looks in response. “Who was it that said alcohol was a social lubricant?”

“No idea. Never heard that expression before.” Zoe looked at the clock. “What time do you have to be there?”

“Uhh…” Chris scrunched his face as he attempted to remember what time they’d agreed. “Half eight.”

Zoe crossed her arms and huffed at him.

“Speaking as someone who’s known you for years rather than your boss: Dude. You’ve got an _hour_.”

“Yeahhhhh, well…” Chris shrugged weakly. “Better early than late,”

Zoe rolled her eyes (Chris noticed how often she’d been doing it, and privately wondered if she’d ever developed eye problems because of it). “Look. Just sit down and relax for half an hour. It’s fine.” _You’re getting back to the way you were before. I’m proud._

The young man visibly relaxed. “Really?”

“Really.” Despite herself, Zoe failed to repress a smile as the younger man did, indeed, end up relaxing. For about fifteen minutes, at least.

~x~

Zach glanced at his watch, flexing his fingers nervously. He had no idea _why_ he was nervous; maybe it was the prospect of the young man he’d been nothing-short-of stalking these last few months potentially not turning out to be what he’d imagined him to be. Having not dated since breaking up with Jon, his intuition and knowledge of social mechanisms in these circumstances was…a little rusty, needless to say.

Suddenly, he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” a soft, gravelly voice uttered.

“Oh hey!” Relief blossomed in Zach’s gut as he turned, seeing Chris, his own body language indicating his nerves. “You okay?”

“Yeah, man, I’m good. You recovered from last night?” Amusement twinkled in the younger man’s blue eyes.

“I’m half-Irish, we have an amazing alcohol recovery rate,” Zach joked. “You want something to drink?”

“Just a Coke,”

“Two Cokes, please,” Zach said to the barman before turning back to his date. “So, uh…how’s things? In general, I mean.”

 Chris did wonder how to answer this. “Um. Things are good, actually.” _Beginning to look up, at the very least._ He didn’t want to say this out loud, in case Zach got the wrong impression. Or the right impression, Chris wasn’t sure.

The bar was sardines-in-a-tin crowded, as per usual for a Saturday night; so much so that after they’d finished their drinks, Zach ended up having to yell, “D’you wanna go somewhere else?”

Chris nodded eagerly and the two men left.

Chris was the first to break the silence as they wandered down the street the bar was on. “So, uh…sorry if I’m being too…forward, but I’m guessing it didn’t work out with the…” _Don’t make assumptions, Pine_. “…other person you bought flowers for a few months back?”

“Huh? Oh, Jon.” Zach exhaled deeply. He’d almost forgotten. _Almost_. “No…broke up a few hours after I bought the flowers.”

“Shit, Zach, I’m sorry.” There was genuine sympathy in Chris’ voice with – and Zach was sure he was imagining things – a twang of guilt, as if he’d caused the break-up.

“Yeah, well…” Zach shrugged, despite the pang in his heart. “The relationship was kind of…broken anyway. Breaking, even,”

“Ah,” was all the younger man could say to that as they continued their stroll down the street. Unusually for the city, it was quiet, and cooler than normal, the famous smog not present in the sky.

“So, uh…if you don’t mind me asking, what about you?”

Chris’ head shot up to stare at Zach.

“I mean, uh…” Zach thanked whatever spiritual deity was in the sky for the fact that it was dark so the other man couldn’t see his surely-reddening face. “How long’s it been since you…last…”

Chris’ hand unconsciously snuck up to rub his right arm. “Two years.”

“Two _years?_ ” Zach’s eyebrows shot up. “No way. I’m not believing that,”

“Why?”

“Dude. Have you _seen_ yourself?” The dark-haired man cleared his throat. “Sorry. I just…I can’t imagine you being single for very long, is all,”

Chris laughed, suddenly, and the tension broke. “Thanks, but no. Uh…my last relationship ended really badly.” _Really,_ really _badly, in fact_. “I, uh. I just…It was more choice than lack of offers. The reason why I haven’t dated for two years,”

“Wow,” Zach uttered quietly. He’d heard from a few others – namely Karl and Eric, or ‘Urbana’ as he secretly nicknamed them – that a few months was too soon to visit the dating market again, so to speak. Two _years_ , however…He wondered how severe the nature of the ending of Chris’ relationship was to put him off dating for that long.

Chris squared his shoulders, trying to steady his breathing, trying not to let Ray enter his mind. This was the first night in a long time that he’d felt as good as he was feeling now, and the past was _not_ going to come along and fuck that up. He wouldn’t let it happen. He was determined.

“So, uh…wanna go anywhere particular?”

“Uhm…” Chris shrugged. “I’m kinda happy just being out here, to be honest. Could go practically anywhere tonight. _Outside_ ,” he stressed with a chuckle, seeing the look on Zach’s face.

“Aww. Killjoy,” Zach mock-sulked.

“That’s just how I am!” Chris replied, sticking his tongue childishly out at the other man.

“Oh, well…” Zach smirked. “Considering I want to get to know you more than just Cute Guy At Bergman’s – with capitalisation – this is a pretty good start,”

Chris just laughed and ran off, Zach giving chase behind him.

~x~

Well after midnight, the door to Zach’s apartment crashed open, closely followed by Zach and Chris themselves, lips and tongues waging a secret yet fiery war in each other’s mouths. Zach manoeuvred Chris in line with the couch before shoving him down on it, breathless, his pupils blown.

Chris smirked evilly before grabbing Zach by his shirt, pulling it off and pulling him down in turn, crushing his lips with his own, anticipation thrumming through his veins like innumerable charms of hummingbirds as Zach got to work on Chris’ shirt, the exposure felt as a light breeze on his hot skin. It was this anticipation that got to work between Chris’ hips for the first time in _god knows how fucking long_ , forcing them up against Zach’s, against his hardening member. A whine of want escaped the younger man’s throat and a growl of lust escaped the elder’s as they took some moments to feast their respective eyes on the other’s exposed torsos.

Zach took the lead again, almost pouncing on Chris’ kiss-plumped lips and making them his starting point for his personal exploration of the other man’s body, adding his fingers into the equation,  all of which made the other man writhe, buck and groan from deep in his throat along the way. Chris’ hands, in turn, desperately searched for the long, thick hair of the other man as he heard the button on his jeans pop, heard the scratch of the zipper as it was pulled, felt his dick pop out in the extra space –

 – _Wait a minute, what am I doing, what am I doing to Ray_  –

“No!”

Zach stopped, hovering, eyes fixed on Chris’ face, wondering if that had really just happened. Chris’ own eyes opened in turn and he shot up, zipping himself back up, searching wildly for his shirt, fumbling with the buttons like a fool as Zach sat back and simply stared in confusion. The air, which previously seemed to be roaring as if an invisible crowd was cheering the two men on, suddenly seemed to fall silent.

Chris stood up, blinking until his vision found Zach again, still on the sofa, still half dressed, still bemused.

“I…I’m sorry, I just – I can’t – ”

Not wishing to see the look on the other man’s face, Chris turned tail and ran out the door, out the apartment block, running all the way home. Once he was home, he stripped down to his underwear and curled up in bed, repeatedly clawing his forearms until they bled, ashamed and aroused at the same time.

He couldn’t do this again. He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t be unfaithful to Ray, couldn’t be _that_ exposed to anyone else, possibly ever again.

He just couldn’t.


	8. Chapter 8

Sunday passed and Zach’s phone stayed silent. After Chris had bolted like a frightened rabbit, Zach had stayed on the sofa, kneeling, still hard and confused, for what felt like all night. Eventually, he had dragged himself to bed and gotten himself off, but it was joyless, his orgasm a total anti-climax.

He didn’t understand what he’d done to cause that bolting _per se_. He just knew that he felt like a total fool, and wound up flinching at the very thought of Chris, who floated unwillingly in his head at several points in the day.

Not a lot stumped him enough to make him forget the day, but this was one such situation in which this occurred.

~x~

“Soooooo _ooooo_ …?” Katie’s voice raised in pitch as she extended the last letter.

“What?” Chris turned his head to look at her.

“How’d it go last night?” she asked.

Her younger brother turned his head back to watch TV, not answering her.

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah, that bad,” Chris replied in a stiff tone of voice.

Katie shifted so she was sitting next to him. “Wanna talk about it?”

“I’m a man, Kat, I don’t talk about my feelings,”

Katie raised an eyebrow in response, as if to “pfffffffft” at that.

Chris sighed, shifting so he was comfortable on the sofa. “Alright. We…Things were getting good and…I bolted,”

His sister frowned. “You _bolted?_ Wait, wait, don’t tell me where you bolted _from_ , I don’t wanna know,”

“You’re a shrink, it’s your job to hear unpleasant things,”

“That’s because people pay me to hear them. You’re not paying me. Additionally, you’re my baby bro. Anyway, what happened?”

Chris sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. I ju…I freaked out. And ran home. We weren’t too far from mine…I think. I don’t remember, I was running in a blind panic. Stop _looking_ at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Like Mum does. Take off your shrink-face,”

“My shrink-face?”

Chris scowled.

“Shouldn’t do that, it gives you wrinkles,”

“Gives _you_ wrinkles, you mean,”

Katie swiped at him with a pillow. “Stop making me painfully aware of our large age gap – Ben, get down from there!” She leapt up to rescue her son from the bookcase. “Good God, a _bookcase_. Last week, it was a table. Next week, it’ll be the building Tom Cruise climbed in _Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol_ ,”

“Boy’s gonna major in English like his uncle!” Chris teased, “or climbing, as Tom Cruise is wont to do.”

“If he _lives_ long enough to major in _anything_. Isn’t that right, little man?” She tickled Ben’s tummy affectionately and he giggled. “Real climber, you are.” She returned to her seat, bouncing her toddler on her knee. “So what did you do after?”

“Ran home and went to sleep,” Chris replied, suddenly finding great fascination in the dirt under his fingernails. “Didn’t wake up ‘til an hour ago, then –”

“Yeah, I know, came straight round here,” Katie finished. “So, what are you gonna do?”

Chris let the question stretch in the air between them before answering. “I’m not going to answer that because you’re going to tell me, using my full name. I can feel it,”

“You, Christopher Whitelaw Pine, are going to call him and explain why you bolted like you did. No copping out on it either.”

“And there we go, point one to me,”

~x~

“What did you do?”

“No, Eric, it’s like this – Zach, _WHAT_ did you do?!”

“Oh, excuse _me_ for not being as good an actor as you,”

Karl poked Eric in the side, which shut him up. “Seriously, Quinto. Spill.”

“I honestly don’t know!” Zach protested. Once again, he’d found himself at his usual café, having called Eric for advice. Karl had tagged along too, because he was Karl and given how amalgamated his and Eric’s surnames were – in Zach’s mind – this obviously meant they couldn’t be apart in real life either.

“So.” Eric leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes almost hooded in what was meant to be an intense stare but which just made him look bored. “Go from the beginning.”

“Yeah, ‘cause Eric has to be told twice about every STOP POKING ME!”

“Shut up. Zach, continue.”

“Okaaaay…” Zach exhaled deeply. “Things were going well. Really well. “ _I was just about to get my lips around his cock_. “And…I don’t know…he suddenly freaked out, he yelled and then bolted.”

Eric narrowed his eyes. “What were you doing, exactly?”

Zach waited for the inevitable ‘actually, I don’t want to know’. It never came. “Seriously? You want to know?”

“Seriously.”

“Uh…” Zach didn’t know how to put this delicately. “We were about to – Wait, do you have no concept of personal boundaries at all, Bana?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Karl piped in.

“He loves it _really_ ,”

Zach rolled his eyes.

“Careful you don’t do that too often, mate. Y’ might get eye strain, I know someone who does that a lot,”

“Male or female?”

“Female. Why, have you decided to – ”

Karl clapped a hand over Eric’s mouth. “Never mind him, he doesn’t know when to stop,”

“I should know this by now. Oh, thank you,” he added to the waitress as she placed his green tea on the table, whilst asking himself the age-old question for the thousandth time: _Seriously, guys, are you screwing?_  And then: _If not, why not?_

“You know what you should do?” Karl proffered.

“What?” Zach sighed. Whilst Urbana’s collective heart was in the right place, their advice was…misleading, to say the least. He appreciated the intentions, however.

“You should call him,”

“No _way!_ ” Zach reflexively shouted, drawing the attention of the other customers in the café. Lowering his voice, he expanded on his protest. “ _He_ was the one who ran out on me, so he should call _me_.”

“From what I’ve heard, Chris is not gonna do that…”

It was Zach’s turn to narrow his eyes. “From what you’ve heard?”

All the bounce suddenly seemed to go out of Karl, as if the fun vacuum had arrived in that particular space of LA. He slowly uncovered Eric’s mouth and the two men, unusually silent, looked at each other.

“D’you wanna tell him or shall I?” Eric asked Karl in a low voice.

A range of expressions flitted across the New Zealander’s face before he replied. “You tell him.”

“Okaaay…” Eric took a deep breath. “I did not tell you this, but I have been past Bergman’s a couple of times.”

“More than a _couple_ ,” Karl muttered, earning a kick from the Australian.

“Anyway,” Eric continued, “when we first got the impression – ”

“Not told, _got the impression_ ,” Karl stressed.

“ FuckssakeKarlshutup – that you liked this guy who worked at Bergman’s, I went past Bergman’s a few more times until I saw the guy that roughly matched the description you gave. Even went in to double-check, God bless name tags, although there was this rather overenthusiastic young man – Anton, I believed his name was. Anyway, I spoke to the manager, Zoe, I believe her name is? I know it was totally unprofessional, but she’d noticed I’d been hanging around there a _lot_ and pulled me in for questioning. I broke under her interrogation and told her about my suspicions, she said she’d seen you in there a few times – ”

“When she said ‘a few times’, she meant ‘a lot’, I’m sure, since you were practically stalking this guy – ” Karl broke in.

“I was not _stalking_ him!” Zach insisted, indignant.

“But, long story short, she agreed to help me as long as it didn’t interfere with his level of quality at work, or something like that,”

“Those words are only strange to you because you haven’t _had_ work in several months,” Zach muttered.

“So, she’d give Chris a push, and we would give you a push,” Karl summarised.

“We know you, Zach. You’d pussyfoot around the issue for _months_ and not go anywhere. Meanwhile, after what happened with his boyfriend – ”

“Wait.” Zach sat up, suddenly alert. “ _What_ happened with his boyfriend?”

~x~

Zach didn’t get his answer that night, nor the next night, nor for several nights after. He knew waiting would slowly dismantle his heart and hope, so he focused on work instead, which was steadily producing more positive results as the days crawled by.

One unusually stormy night two weeks after the failed date, Zach was curled up on the sofa with a thick book, deeply engrossed in it when the doorbell rang.

“Oh, Noah!” he huffed when the big dog bolted up, barking in response. The biped half of the two put his book down and practically stomped to the door, glancing at the time as he passed and mentally wondering who could be calling at this time at night.

He was surprised to open the door and find a thoroughly drenched Chris standing at his doorstep.

“H-hey,” the younger man shivered, hunching his shoulders together, and for a brief moment, Zach admired the muscles underneath as they worked to keep warm before remembering he was supposed to be pissed with him.

“What are you doing here?” Zach sighed tiredly. “You bolt like a frightened rabbit, you don’t call for two weeks…what…what’s going on, Chris? Just…” He threw his hands up in frustration. “If you’re gonna be like this, I don’t wanna have anything to do with you,”

“No, please,” Chris begged, blue eyes pleading and full of hurt. “I’m sorry for doing that to you. Really, I am. If you let me in, I’ll explain everything.”

“Everything?” Zach repeated, eyebrows raised.

“Everything,” Chris swore.

Zach gently bit the tip of his tongue in resignation and stepped back, making a gesture to let the other man in. “Did you _run_ here? D’you wanna borrow some clothes?”

“Yes, because fuck driving in this weather, and yes, please, it’s gonna be a long one,” Chris replied, shivering. Resisting the urge to wrap his arms protectively around the younger man, Zach led him upstairs, grabbed a T-shirt, a towel and some joggers and gave Chris some privacy.

“Coffee for you if you want it,” Zach told him, bringing his own into the living room.

Chris soon followed, sitting to the older man’s left and setting the mug carefully down on the table in front, still very tense.

“So.” Zach bookmarked his page, closed the book and put it next to him on the table, turning his whole body to face the younger man. “What’s the explanation you owe me, then?”

_It’s now or never. If I’m gonna trust him, I have to tell him._ Chris took a deep breath. “It’s…I…have to tell you all of it, ‘cause it wouldn’t make sense…otherwise. If I didn’t.” _Gold star for articulacy, Pine!_

Zach nodded.

Suppressing a shudder, the blue-eyed man sat forward and began his explanation.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where most of the warnings come in. I'll reiterate here.
> 
> WARNING: Domestic abuse (primarily verbal, but mentioned physical too), drunkenness and mentions of non-con as well as a car accident resulting in a minor character death.
> 
> If you even suspect that any of those might be triggering to you, skip this chapter. I won't be upset, I promise.
> 
> ~Mika

Believe it or not, Chris used to drink, and enjoy it too. He used to enjoy many things, like laughing and the pleasure of a woman in his bed, especially during university years.

In his last year, the most important of his student career, he’d met Ray, and that? Well. That meeting changed a lot in Chris’ life. He was taken by Ray’s ease, his laugh and his sense of humour, amongst many other things that Chris would discover once they started dating.

It was only after they started dating that Chris realised something was terribly wrong; that something has changed. And as he stood in front of the mirror pressing flannel-wrapped ice to his purpling cheek, he stared at himself in the mirror, battered as he was. For the thousandth time, he asked himself why he wasn’t wondering why he was still in this relationship.

_Have I really reached that point? Has it just become numb acceptance now?_

“Hey!” a muffled voice yelled outside the door, followed by a series of bangs. Even as Chris stiffened up, muscles locking in terror, he still shook so hard the soap rattled, falling into the sink. Ray had been drinking again, and the bruise – and the throbbing pain – on Chris’ cheek was evidence of such.

“Hey, Princess! Don’t even…uh…” There was a hollow-sounding rattle as something was kicked, or Ray fell over. Chris was never sure. He hated it when Ray drank, because Chris was the one who suffered for it. He had tried to hide in the past, but somehow, he was always found. And he could never walk properly the next day either, having to stuff some kind of tissue into his underwear so people didn’t see the inevitable blood patch.

Chris’ throat closed and he tried to regulate his breathing, but said breath was wheezing through a restricted passage. Luckily for this moment, he wasn’t asthmatic; he never had been so. Panic and fear did strange things to the body.

“Don’t bother prettying yourself up. ‘S gonna take a lot of work by a lot of people,”

By Ray’s standards, this was a pretty weak shot. He’d called Chris worse, especially when he was done raping him, kicking Chris as he slid to the floor and curled up, naked and ravaged. Chris closed his eyes, hoping that Ray had drunk enough to knock out the blood supply to his dick, if only for tonight. He didn’t care if he had to pay for it in the morning.

Once he was certain of silence, Chris dropped the flannel and ice into the sink, unlocked the door and opened it slowly, cautiously. Sweeping his eyes around the hallway, he couldn’t see Ray, but he did see the small knocked-over plant that had presumably made the hollow sound he’d heard earlier. He slowly crept out of the bathroom; his body was coiled and tensed for defence as he picked up the plant and replaced it on the mantelpiece.

Hearing more knocks from his left – _in the living room_ , he realised – he crept, at a slightly quicker pace, along the hallway. As he got closer, the knocks and curses got louder, and it was only when he got into the living room that he saw Ray was looking for something.

“Where’s m’ keys?”

Chris took a deep, even breath, reaching into his back pocket and feeling the hard metal within. “I’ve got them,”

“You’ve got ‘em?” The inebriated man stumbled as he tried to stand up straight, cold eyes fixed upon Chris. “How’d you get ‘em, Princess? Uh? Wanna gimme ‘em back?”

Chris shook his head, slowly and obviously, taking steps back as Ray approached him. “I can’t let you do that, Ray. You’re drunk…just, please, let me make you coffee and then – ”

“I don’t want fucking coffee,” Ray spat, speech unusually clear for someone who’d sunk far too much. “I want to go for a fucking drive. And you…” He pointed at Chris, who flinched as if the finger was a knife. “You…are gonna gimme the keys…and come the fuck with me. It’s a beauuuutiful night, Princess, let’s not waste it,”

Chris frowned in confusion. “Come with you? Why?”

“Why not?” Ray grinned. “I’m bored of routine. It’s boring. Boring boring bor…” He stopped suddenly, as if realising what he was doing. “So, Princess. Gimme the keys.”

“You know, this Princess shit’s getting boring now,” Chris retorted, surprised at his own bravery.

“No? You don’t like your little nickname, Your Majesty?” Ray sneered. “Well, tough shit, darling. Now give me the keys.”

“ _No_ – ”

_Crack!_

The blow took Chris so much by surprise he dropped the keys, giving Ray a chance to snatch them off the floor and grab Chris’ elbow, dragging him outside despite his protests, shoving the keys into Chris’ hands without a word.

Reluctantly, Chris unlocked the car and left the keys in the ignition, sliding across and plugging in his seatbelt, ignoring the piercing pain in his face.

Ray threw himself in the car and started it in a very unsubtle manner, slamming the door shut and turning his head to look at Chris. “Why are you in? Did I tell you?”

Chris swallowed. “No.”

“No _what?_ ”

“No sir – ”

Chris was rewarded with yet another punch, this time directly on his nose. Agonising pain shot through him and he bent his head down, fumbling for tissues he knew were in the car. At the same time, he pinched his nose as blood poured out of it, the car moving before he realised it was doing so.

When asked later, he didn’t remember anything about the car ride, nor did he remember anything between the car crashing and him waking up to find flashing lights and uniformed men surrounding the car, shouting encouragement as they tried to cut him out the mangled metal. As hard as they tried, they couldn’t save Ray. He’d died on impact. Even after the words sank in, Chris couldn’t feel anything. Doctors, nurses and other medical attendants he saw told him it was shock, plain shock from being involved in a serious accident. His family told him the same.

Chris thought, after that day, after that moment, that he would be free from Ray. What he hadn’t counted on over the course of the next eight hundred days was the long-term psychological effects of the abuse he’d received from Ray. The nightmares, for example. The guilt and shame which led him to self-harming just to balance the physical with the emotional, the insomnia, the almost-total personality change.

He told everyone it was grief, but he knew exactly what it was. If Ray could be a good actor in successfully hiding the monster inside him, Chris could hide the consequences of living – being trapped with – such a monster.

~x~

By the time he’d finished recounting all of it, Chris was exhausted, slumping forward in his seat to nearly collapse on the coffee table. Zach, meanwhile, had his hands to his mouth in horror, body tensed in anger. _How the fuck could someone be so_ evil?

“It’s amazing, actually,” Chris croaked, shoulders heaving as if he was about to cry. “No serious injuries from the crash _itself_. Before he died, the bastard managed to crack my cheekbone and break my nose…”

“Jesus.” Zach took his hands away from his mouth. There was something he wanted to ask. “S-so…you were with Ray for…how long?”

“Seven years,” Chris rasped, “only two of them fully consensual. I couldn’t leave for the longest time. I was scared shitless of the prospect of him finding and…making good on his promise to kill me if I even tried. I was the metaphorical princess in the tower for half a fucking decade.”

 _Jesus…_ “And…your family never knew he was…doing this to you?”

The younger man gave him a look Zach couldn’t place. “If they had worked it out, they never confronted me about it. Mind you, Ray swore he’d kill me if I did tell anyone. And I didn’t…” He let out a sarcastic chuckle. “You’d think in a family where two of them are shrinks, they’d work it out, right? I dunno. Maybe they did.”

“Who…who knew?” Zach sat forward.

Chris flexed his fingers. “Zoe. Anton, eventually. Uh…they…knew _of_ it, and their reactions were pretty much the same as yours. Nobody knows of the extent of the…abuse. No-one but you and I, obviously.”

“Shit…” Zach breathed, rubbing his face. “So, the scars. How did you – ”

“Cover them? Concealer and foundation,” Chris replied, a wry smile of it. “Lots and lots of concealer and foundation. I didn’t like it, but better that than the Spanish Inquisition. Better than anyone finding out.” He drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around them, staring into space, seemingly shutting down inside.

Fighting back an urge to move to the younger man, wrap his arms around him and hold him tightly, Zach made do by shifting in his seat. The two sat in silence for several long moments, the dark tale sinking in.

Eventually, however, Zach spoke again.

“So…now…now you’ve told me…what are you going to do?”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know. I…didn’t expect to go into… _that_ much detail with you.” He lifted his head, turning it to look at Zach, eyes full of fear. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Shit, Chris,” Zach said gently, “no. Never. It’s your story to tell if you want, not mine,”

“Not something I enjoy telling,” Chris said wryly, but relief was present in his eyes. “You know what? Actually, I do know where I’m going from here. I’ll start with my family, either telling them or confirming what they’d worked out,”

“And then?” Zach encouraged gently.

“And then…” Chris fell back into himself. “I don’t know. M-maybe…start the actual healing process. G-get some professional help. I’ve felt guilty for surviving and ashamed of even looking at another man or woman for so long. Or at least, I did. And then _you_ happened. The day you walked into Bergman’s…Jesus, my life wasn’t the same.” Chris chuckled at the memory before continuing. “And I was just…scared for so long. But ghosts? They’re child’s play, right? And I’m thirty years old, I’m a grown man.”

“I agree,” Zach replied softly, smiling at the younger man.

“Listen, um…” Chris swallowed, body language shifting, suddenly uneasy. “You will…stay in my life, won’t you? I mean…this…the process isn’t going to be easy. If you do. On either of us, I mean. I’ll probably cry and scream like a baby…If-if you do want to leave, I understand. This crap’s a lot to deal with in any normal relationship, so…”

“ _Chris_ , stop talking,” Zach teased, chuckling. “Of course I’ll stay. Can’t get rid of me _that_ easily. Just…promise me you’ll stop running from me, in a literal and metaphorical sense.”

Chris nodded. “I promise.”

The older man extended his hand towards the younger, who stared at it for a few minutes before placing his own hand in there, linking the fingers together. The two smiled at each other again, remaining like that for quite a while.

Much later, once Chris had gone and Zach was getting ready for bed, he caught a splotch of dark pink in the corner of his eye. Turning to get a full view of said source, he instead found a rose, lying on top of a note. He frowned, not remembering it being there before –

_Chris._

Something clicked in his brain as he gently moved the rose to read the note underneath, written in loopy, left-leaning writing.

_Zach,_

_We all know what roses represent in Western culture, but only the white, red and sometimes yellow roses. This dark pink rose represents the gratitude I feel to you for hearing me out, for understanding, and for being crazier than me in choosing to stay in my life._

_There was something else I wanted to tell you, but my explanation – and whole life story – took over. I chose to work with flora, because even though humans have been discovering, categorising, crossbreeding and importing it for years, there’s so much we still don’t know about them. Also, when words fail to accurately express and on the off-chance that someone is bad at reading body language, flowers fill in the gap nicely._

_I can’t express my gratitude enough. Thankyou, Zachary, for giving me a chance, and I hope to pay you back with interest in the future._

_– Chris_

_Disclaimer: I totally did not steal this from work. Neither the rose nor half the wording in this note._

Zach had no shame in admitting that a warm glow spread through him as he read the note, chuckling at the little addition at the end. He opened his drawer, folded the note and slipped it into the jacket pocket at the back of his personal diary and ran downstairs to fill a glass with water for the rose, leaving it pretty much in the same place as he found it.

That night, he fell asleep quicker and deeper than he expected to, the storm still raging outside, but the whole apartment – and its inhabitants – calm and at peace. The same could be said for another inhabitant of an entirely different apartment, similarly sleeping better than he had done in years, one single phrase rotating in his mind:

_No more running._


	10. Chapter 10

“ _FUCK!_ ”

Chris flinched as his sister screamed in anger. Terror surged up in him and he stiffened, gripping the sofa, breathing hard.

“Shit…I’m sorry, Chris…I am.” Katie scrubbed furiously at her eyes. _Note to self: Don’t scream in sweary anger in front of your brother, unless you want to re-victimise him._ “Just…How could that fucker _do_ that to you?”

_I don’t know, Katie. I’m still asking that myself._ It frightened Chris to see his sister – usually so calm and collected, much more so than him – just lose it completely. He supposed this sort of thing happening so close to home would do that to someone.

“How did I not pick up on it?” She stared at a spot on the wall behind him, fingers clenching and unclenching. “I mean, c’mon, I’m a psychologist, for fuck’s sake. You mean to tell me my little brother was being abused in a number of ways and _I didn’t pick up on it?_ ”

“Kat, please…don’t beat yourself up about it. He hid his monster, I hid my scars. I…got used to it in the end,” Chris reasoned with his sister, voice getting softer and softer.

Katie took several deep breaths, pressing her fingers into her eyes. “How badly?”

Chris understood. “Overall?”

“Overall.”

“You sure you wanna hear this? It’s not…” Chris swallowed. “You won’t be angry at me?”

“Oh, Chris,” his sister whispered, eyes filling with tears. “Why would I be angry with you? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Katie, if you lost it when I merely told you I’d been abused in a number of ways…how are you going to be when I answer your question of how badly he abused me?”

The older woman ran her tongue over her lips in an echo of her brother. “If I get my shrink face on, would you have more confidence in telling me?”

“Long as you don’t tell Mum,” Chris answered, crossing his legs and looking straight at her.

“I won’t. Therapist-patient privacy.”

Chris took a deep breath. “He sexually, physically, emotionally and mentally abused me. He’s…He put me in hospital many times before. Broken bones, fractures, muscle ruptures…and that was only a small percentage. Shit, Kat, h-he destroyed me.” Chris crossed his arms, hands rubbing his upper arms as if he was cold.

_C’mon, Katherine, you’ve done this for years._ Katie took many deep breaths, blessing and cursing the fact that Ray was dead, else she would have done the job the car accident failed to do. “Okay. So, what’s the plan? Where are you going to do?”

Chris ticked them off on his fingers. “Tell Mum and Dad. Find a therapist. Start rebuilding my life. Hold on to Zach for as long as I can.”

Katie ran her tongue over her lips again, anger cooling. “You realise it’s going to be a slow process, right? You and Zach?”

Chris nods. “He knows. He’s willing to stay, to help me through it all. How we’ll come out of it, if there is a ‘we’ at the end of the tunnel…” He shrugs. “I don’t know. But I want…I want it to be.”

_You really like this guy, huh._ Katie nodded again, not knowing what to say.

“So, uh…” Chris swallowed. “I’d…better get going. The sooner I see Mum and Dad, the sooner…I can start.”

“‘Kay, bro,” Katie replied quietly.

The siblings stood up, and rather unexpectedly, Chris gave Katie a tight hug, tighter than she remembered in years.

_He’s scared_ , she realised, hugging him back just as tightly.

“Take care, yeah?” She spoke into his chest, short as she was against his height. “Let me know how it all goes.”

“Sure,” he muttered back, voice quivering slightly with emotion. They said their goodbyes and parted.

Outside the house, on the street, Zach was already there, waiting. He smiled as Chris approached. “How did it go?”

Chris made sure the gate was securely fastened behind him. “Yeah, it went well. She beat herself up about not picking up on it, but I reassured her it was alright. Kinda shows I…hid it well, huh?”

Zach nodded. “It does. So what next? Lunch and then your parents?”

Chris nodded. “Lunch sounds good. And, uh. Mum first, before you ask,”

The older man smiled and the two walked down the street in companionable silence, hands brushing against each other. Eventually, they gave up and linked their little fingers, subtle but secure, and continued like that all the way to the café.


	11. Chapter 11

It was mid-afternoon by the time Chris emerged from the house of his dad and step-mother – the final one to visit – looking thoroughly exhausted and drained. Once again, Zach was waiting outside the property, this time in the car instead of directly at the gate, frowning at Chris in concern as the younger man opened the door and near-collapsed into the car.

“How’d it go?” Zach asked for what felt like the billionth time that day.

Chris just nodded, eyes closed, giving the appearance of sleep. “That’s…that’s it for today. I can’t…do any more,”

“Okay.” Zach wanted to rub the blue-eyed man’s arm comfortingly, but he wasn’t sure how he would react. “What do you wanna do now? If you don’t mind me saying, you look exhausted,”

Chris laughed roughly. “Feeling it too. Uhh…” He trailed off, eyes down, somehow reluctant to answer.

“Wanna come round mine?” Zach offered. “I get the feeling you don’t want to go home. We could just order in and watch trash TV,”

“You don’t cook?”

“I’m awful. Trust me,”

Chris laughed again, this time a bit lighter. “I thought Italians were meant to be amazing in the kitchen,”

“Nah, those genes are conspicuously absent in that department,”

“Bet they’re not so absent in others, hey?” A wicked gleam shone in Chris’ eyes before he flinched as if startled, turning away and hunching his body as best as he could. “I’m sorry, that…that was too…”

_He’s cowering from me_ , Zach realised, a chill running down his spine. “Chris, it’s okay. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise.” _I’m not Ray._

Chris didn’t respond for a long, long time, only moving to strap himself in. _I don’t know that you’re not going to hurt me._

Breathing out slowly through his nose, Zach drove back to his place, the silence only serving to lengthen the car journey.

~x~

“So how’s this gonna work then?”

“How’s what gonna work?” Chris replied on the other side of the sofa through a mouthful of battered prawns, frowning at the question.

Zach gesticulated wildly as he chewed. “Us. I mean…are we friends? Are we boyfriends? I just…” He shut up, feeling ridiculous, feeling a flush suffuse his cheeks.

Chris shook his head. “No. No, I…” He swallowed. “I want to b-be your boyfriend, but…”

“We’re just taking things really, really slowly?” Zach tentatively finished.

Chris nodded vigorously.

“Okay.” The older man smiled. “I understand. I mean…I know you’ve been through all seven circles of Hell and back again, but…”

“You wanted clarification,” Chris finished, scraping his fork round the last crumbs of the prawns.

“And…” Zach took a deep breath. “I’m _really_ sorry if I sound too pushy, but…this trust-building thing…it goes both ways. I need to prove that you can trust me, sure, but you need to let me show you that you can trust me. Make sense?”

Chris took a long draught of his drink. “Yeah, I know,” he replied quietly, tapping the glass with his fingertips.

“On the other hand, don’t take that like I’m gonna push you into doing things you don’t want to do. I’m not… _him_.”

_I want to prove to you that not all men are like him._

Turning his body a few degrees towards Chris, he slung his arm around the back of the sofa, hand proffered to the younger man; an open, wordless invitation.

Scooting over to the other man, Chris settled back against the other man, before – and this was something that surprised Zach – leaning forward and pulling Zach’s arm down so it was around his shoulders, hand dangling down over his left arm.

“Shit, is there really nothing better on?” Chris commented casually, a weariness in his tone. Wordlessly, Zach passed him the remote, still stunned at the boldness of Chris’ actions. Chris flipped through the channels for what felt like ages before something outside the TV caught his eye.

“Hey,” he said, nodding towards the Wii before turning to Zach, “got any good games?”

It was the light in Chris’ eyes that made Zach grin. Resisting the urge to kiss the other man on the forehead, he detached himself from Chris and walked over to the drawer, rummaging through the white spines.

“Would Mario Kart do you?” he asked, turning his head, looking Chris straight in the eyes.

Once again, those bright blues lit up. “Absolutely. Not Rainbow Road though. I swear the Devil himself had a hand in developing that level,”

Zach chuckled in agreement, finding the box and drawing it out. “Mario-Kart-but-not-Rainbow-Road it is then,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I have a [Tumblr](http://mikasoze.tumblr.com) if you want to interact further with me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter also contains references to past abuse.

It wasn’t the nightmares Chris hated in his bedtime and sleeping routine. It wasn’t the stomach-vanishing fear of climbing into an empty bed. It wasn’t the prospect of a disturbed night – thanks to Ray, Chris was a light, alert sleeper – that scared the young man witless.

No, it was removing the concealer and foundation he used to cover his scars that terrified Chris the most at night. His English Literature graduate mind connected it to the idea of him having to face his scars in the mirror; accept that they are there, that they would be there for the rest of his life; that anyone else he would take to bed with him would see them.

And bolt in fear as a consequence.

Many of those scars stemmed from just that; from Ray believing that Chris would leave him for another man or woman, grabbing the nearest implement and making _damn sure_ to mark Chris so permanently that nobody would, in Ray’s words, ever want him again.

Each of them had a story. None of them had a _reason_ for their infliction in the first place, or so Chris’ therapist was trying to make him believe.

Chris ran the cloth gently over his face, wondering how Zach would react should their relationship ever get to the scar-showing stage. Sure, they had something, and it was having a positive effect – Zoe and Anton had both commented on separate occasions on how much better Chris was already looking. However, the young man privately wondered if it would be strong enough to overcome…

“To overcome these,” he whispered to himself, verbally finishing what he’d mentally started. His face was crisscrossed with lines and textures, some of which, when covered up, simply looked like acne scars to the casual observer.

He stared at them a few seconds longer before, without thinking about it, removed his shirt and twisted himself so he could look at the deeper, more obvious scars on his back. His throat dried as he saw the large, slightly darker, iron-shaped burn scar on his right shoulder blade, remembering the incident behind that.

And there were the scars from third-degree sunburn – still obvious after so long. Ray’s methods were wide-ranging. Sometimes, most often when he was sober, he’d revert to the passive methods of abuse; the emotionally damaging kind. The sunburn was a result of one of those methods. By the time Ray bothered to let Chris back into the cool of the house on the hottest summer day in LA that year, the younger man was dehydrated and in crippling pain.

In the present day, Chris shook his head violently and threw his shirt back on before he ended up punching the wall in anger. He continued to remove the make-up from his scars, but his hands were shaking as several realisations and questions to himself flooded into his head all at once, all quickly answered.

_I dated a guy with a family history of alcoholism, mental illness and violence because he was a very good actor and pretended to be different from the rest of them. Fear trapped me in his hold for seven years. No, I have no idea how I survived that long, sheer luck, I guess. Karma killed Ray, not me. I shouldn’t feel guilty for surviving._

“I shouldn’t feel guilty for surviving,” he repeated out loud to himself as he washed the cloth. Suddenly struck with an idea, he fled the bathroom to his bedroom, finding a collapsed cardboard box in the back of his wardrobe and reconstructing it. As if on a timer, he ran round the flat throwing everything of Ray’s he’d kept over the years into the box, pushing it all down once it began to overflow. Eventually, once he couldn’t fit any more, he carried the box down to his car, shoving it in the backseat and running to gather more armfuls of Ray’s things.

He wondered why he’d kept them for so long.

As he drove along the city streets singing loudly to what was playing on the radio, the realisation that this was the most liberated he had felt in months hit him. He increased the volume on his voice in response until he reached one of the few rare patches of abandoned, empty space on the edge of the city.

After he hauled all the stuff out the car and gathered it in one sizeable pile, he stood back, staring hard at it as if it was Ray himself – or rather, a version that could neither speak, move nor hurt Chris.

“I let you control me for way too long. _Way_ too long, in life and death,” Chris muttered, mainly for fear of being overheard, a hard edge to his voice. “I let you degrade me in ways that would get you arrested by the ASPCA in the blind belief that you loved me, that you’d change. You never did, and I’m a fucking moron for that. But there’s one thing I have over you. I survived. I survived _you_ , I survived the _shit_ you put me through. You ended up crushed by a car and I ended up with the guilt, but now? Now, I’m ready.” Chris drew a shaky breath and raised his head as he drew out his lighter.

“I’m ready to _live_.”

With those words, he flicked his lighter open and threw it as hard as he could onto the pile before him.

As it caught light and burned, the young man felt a weight lift off him. He sat cross-legged on the ground, sipping water from his usual trusty bottle, rarely taking his eyes off the fire until it burned itself out, leaving a small pile of ashes.

Chris got up and kicked the pile, scattering them to the wind and on his shoe. Wiping it on the grass, he drove straight home, not looking back. Once home, he got undressed, slipped into bed and cried his weight in tears, punctuating it with driving his fist multiple times into the pillow.

He fell asleep on his stomach, hands curled into fists, and slept for the next twelve hours.

After that night, the make-up removal aspect of the night didn’t seem so terrifying.


	13. Chapter 13

“You know, you can drink if you want to,” Chris muttered to Zach as the pair walked up the path to the front door.

Zach gave Chris a look the younger man couldn’t read. “You dislike it, so out of respect for you, I won’t,”

“You’ve been drunk in front of me before,” Chris pointed out.

“That was before I…” _Before you told me about Ray._ “Before I got to know you. Properly.”

“Before I told you about Ray?” Chris translated, spookily reading Zach’s mind. “Honestly, I’ll be your DD tonight if you do wanna drink. I don’t mind. I’ve done it before. ‘Sides, I’ve spent the last two years going out with Zoe and the others – and Anton, once he was legal _to_ drink – so I’m used to being around drunk people.” He shrugged good-naturedly.

“Mm,” was all Zach could reply to that, showing a shrug of his own. “Not really in the mood anyway,”

“That’s fair.” The younger man smiled, the act completely transforming his face. Smiling back, Zach intertwined his fingers into those of Chris and rang the doorbell, hearing the yells and rhythmic thumps of a party in full swing inside. He felt Chris stiffen beside him and massaged his hand as best as he could, reassuring him without words that everything was okay. The door then opened and the party, as it were, hit them full in the face.

~x~

They both still had a good night overall, in their own respective ways. Zach was eventually won round by the range of booze on offer, but did not drink as much as the particular, annual event is typically thought to warrant. The hours flew, so by the time the pivotal last ten seconds of the night emerged, even Chris was surprised when everyone pretty much stopped what they were doing and started chanting. Wildly looking around, his heart constricted in his chest when he couldn’t see Zach.

“ _NINE! EIGHT!_ ”

He moved, pushing his way through the crowd, eyes frantically scanning for that pitch-dark head. Unfortunately, there were several in the room; there were copious amounts of people in the room and if he couldn’t find Zach –

“ _SEVEN! SIX!_ ”

Chris felt panic reach his throat, tightening it, and knew he had to get out. Turning his head, he saw the back door and dived for it, practically falling out of it into the back garden.

“ _FIVE! FOUR!”_

“Oh, hey.” Zach’s voice sounded, reaching Chris’ ears as he picked himself back up again, dusting himself off. All the younger man could do was stare as Zach finished the cigarette and dropped it on the floor, grinding the butt under his foot, wiping the ash off the sole of his shoe, the moonlight – having decided to make an appearance that night – glinting on his pitch-black locks.

Chris was seized by an urge to thread his fingers through it, but quickly quelled it.

“ _THREE!_ ”

Deciding to seize the situation, Chris strode up to the older man, who watched him warily as he did.

“ _TWO!_ ”

_Are you watching, Raymond?_

“ _ONE!_ ”

Taking Zach’s face in both hands, Chris leaned forward and kissed him just as the clock struck midnight, leading into a new year. The kiss was not gentle and timid – it was strong, it had force but not too much; it told Zach what Chris’ extensive vocabulary somehow couldn’t.

Zach kissed him right back, giving as much as Chris was. They pressed themselves against each other as the kiss intensified, hands entangled in clothes, in hair, gripping at limbs, at muscles.

There was something classic about the way Zach tasted, particularly that night. His taste was of smoke and alcohol, the concoction of heady late nights at deserted bars, the kind Chris had never experienced. It fuelled his appetite, wanting more, wanting more arms to sprout out of his torso so he could touch Zach all over.

That would have to wait, however.

Eventually, the two men broke apart, a throbbing in their respective bottom lips, foreheads together, small noises underscoring their heavy breathing.

“Happy New Year,” Chris breathed, a wicked sparkle in his eyes.

Zach laughed delightfully, knowing what this meant – knowing what Chris’ seizing the moment mean – and kissed the younger man again and again.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY for the lack of updates - I recently moved to Italy, so have been exploring and also settling into my job for the year! Here's Chapter 14; it's the first of a two-parter so part two will be published a little bit later. Enjoy. ~Mika

“So, how’s things with El Blue Eyes?”

“El Blue Eyes?” Zach repeated scathingly. “ _Really_?”

“Really,” Eric answered.

“Really _really_ really,” Karl echoed at the aforementioned man’s right-hand side.

“Okay, enough adverb overuse,” Zach said, rolling his eyes. “Things are fine with him. Great, actually,”

“ _Reaaaaally_?” Karl responded, leaning forward, eyes narrowed in mock scrutiny. “So have you two done it yet?”

“Done it?” Zach repeated, temporarily confused as to what they were talking about for a few minutes.

“Yeah, you know. The dirty. The sheet-sandwich. The love sausage tunnelling – ”

“Okay, seriously, you guys are pretty sick, you know that?” Zach held up his palms in defeat. “No, we haven’t done it. Not yet.”

“It’s been six months!” Eric whined, as if _he_ was the one being denied the sex.

“Eric, Chris has…He’s…” Zach bit his lip, wondering how to phrase this. _He’s been through Hell and back._ “He’s still relatively new to this. I don’t wanna scare him,”

“At this rate, you won’t have to,” Karl muttered, earning an elbow and a "be nice" from Eric. “Hey, you can’t talk, you whined because Zach wasn’t getting laid,”

“Is he wearing a purity ring?” Eric asked, earning an elbow back from Karl this time.

Zach rolled his eyes again. “Not that it’s your business, but no. Look, we’re just choosing not to go at it like rabbits, or you two,”

“We’re fucking?” Eric sounded surprised, eyebrows drawn together.

“Yeah, we’re fucking all of a sudden?”

“All of a su… Come on, guys, why won’t you admit it?”

“Admit what?”

“Yeaaah, Zach. Admit what?”

“Oh, c’mon guys, stop trying to give me eyestrain,”

“Stop rolling your eyes then!”

“Y’know, Chris’ boss does that, and I’ve tried to warn her against doing it.” Eric’s eyebrows were so high up his forehead, they were disappearing into his hairline. Inexplicably, Karl decided at that moment to nuzzle Eric’s arm like a cat. “Dude, what are you doing?”

“‘M a kitty,” Karl replied, continuing to nuzzle.

“Sure you are.” Eric rolled his eyes in exasperation, but petted Karl’s hair in response.

“I do have to admit,” Zach cut in, thoroughly confused by now, despite the fact he should really be used to the bizarre behaviours of the don’t-call-them-a-couple in front of him, “that Chris tests my patience sometimes. It does get frustrating,”

“No surprise there,” Eric replied, serious for once, “if he’s been through as much as I’ve gleaned from you that he has, then he’d wanna take things slowly. Your patience _would_ be tested. Just give it time.”

“Half of that didn’t even make sense…” And _you contradicted yourself_ , he silently added.

“Eh, I know what I mean,” Eric shrugged.

“You’re the only one who knows what you mean,” Zach replied wryly.

“Anyway, Zachary,” Eric continued, “when you do the dirty, even if it is when you guys are old and grey, I wanna know. Everything. Okay, maybe not _everything_ – ” he hurriedly corrected himself as Karl stopped nuzzling long enough to glare in a _you’d better not ask how big his cock is_ way “ – but just tell me, ‘kay? You don’t tell me nearly enough,”

“And you tell me too much,” Zach drily replied.

“Actually we don’t tell you anything,” Karl shot back, having had enough of being a cat.

“Your body language says it all,”

“Body language?”

“Apparently our limbs talk now. Interesting, eh?”

“Interesting indeed…”

Zach got up and left, neither seeing nor hearing the high five the Australasian couple gave each other.

~x~

Chris took the frying pan off the hob, the remnants of butter sizzling as he did. Shifting the pancake in the pan, counting in his head, he took a deep breath and tossed the pancake in the air, watching it as it somersaulted in the air…

And landed straight on the floor, just as Zach bumped into the kitchen with armfuls of groceries, seeing the whole episode.

“Oh,” Chris said softly, quickly bending down to gather up the pancake, his mind racing: _Fuck, I’ve done it now, I’m gonna get it…_ “Shit, ‘m sorry,”

“Chris, it’s okay,” Zach replied, dumping the bags on the table and noticing the other man wasn’t making eye contact. _Does he think I’m going to…No. He can’t be. He can't think that._

“Screwed up,” Chris muttered, dumping the kitchen floor pancake in the bin and fetching the sponge to scrub away the last remaining crumbs. When he was satisfied with its cleanliness, he dumped the sponge in the sink, gripping on to the edge of it, trying to calm himself down.

 _Oh Chris_ , Zach thought, shedding his coat and dumping that on the table without a single thought, striding up to the visibly shaking man and locking his arms around his waist, holding him tightly, as if Chris was Noah during a thunderstorm.

“I’m sorry,” Chris whispered.

“Don’t be, baby,” Zach replied, kissing the back of the other man’s neck. “You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Chris turned in Zach’s arms and threw his own around the older man, burying his face in his neck, breathing deeply. Zach’s hands seemed to take on a mind of their own then, offering Chris comfort in the form of small strokes on his back.

Chris mumbled something.

“Hmm?”

The younger man pulled back, and Zach saw that his eyes were wet. “Will you, uh…s-stay with me tonight?”

“As in sleep over?”

“Yes. No. Well…yeah,” Chris stammered, face flushing a cherry-red. “No, uh, s-sex. Just…”

Zach nodded, understanding. “Only if you’re absolutely sure,”

Chris nodded vigorously, jaw tight, apprehensive.

“Of course I’ll stay,” the older man replied gently, a smile crossing his face.

Chris was one spring away from bouncing in joy at that. He settled instead for a kiss, parting with a loud, over-dramatic smacking sound.

“‘You good if I try the pancake thing again?”

“It’s your apartment, man, go ahead,” Zach replied, heart melting at the child-like joy thrumming through the younger man. It was times like these that his patience _really_ paid off.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you another chapter aaaaaand here it is! ~Mika

“What’s the time?”

Zach rotated his head lazily to look at the clock. “Almost eleven,”

“Mm,” Chris grunted, flopping a hand around equally lazily. “Too early,”

“For what?”

“Uh.” Not for the first time that day, Chris’ face flushed red. “Nothing.”

“Don’t you have the early shift at Bergman’s tomorrow?” Zach pointed out.

“Still too early,” Chris grumbled.

Suddenly, Zach bolted up straight, eyes wide. “Shit, eleven, I gotta go see to Noah and Harold,”

“Ah yeah!” Chris palmed his forehead. “Okay, you do that,”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll be fine for five minutes,” Chris replied, his tone light. Inside, however, his heart was sinking in fear as he realised precisely what Zach staying over meant. He would see Chris’ scars for the first time.

“Okay.” Zach gave the younger man a quick kiss. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”

“You better.” Chris poked the older man, seeing him out before disappearing to the bathroom, taking deep breaths to suppress his rising anxiety and looking into his reflection’s eyes, clenching and unclenching his fist, just as his therapist had told him to.

 _Right. You, Christopher, you have your…boyfriend staying over tonight. Your non-alcoholic, non-abusive, funny, intelligent, kind,_ smoking hot _boyfriend. He is gonna see your scars. Whether he’ll bolt or not…remains to be seen. But you have to be prepared for what happens._

 “C’mon, Pine, let’s do this,” he breathed to himself, a grin spreading slowly across his face.

_Ding-dong!_

Chris ran to the door like a thunderbolt, peering through the peephole and stepping back as he opened the door to let Zach in.

~x~

Chris tried not to stare as Zach stripped down to just his boxers, but it was exceedingly difficult to not sweep his gaze over the lines, contours and curves of the older man’s body. Chris himself was in a plain long-sleeved shirt and jogging bottoms, covering the majority of his scars. However, there were the ones on his hands and face to contend with.

He drew a deep breath as he remembered them, realising he had to tell Zach about them. _This is it. This is now or never._

“Uh, Zach?”

“Yeah?”

“Um…” Chris swallowed, sitting on the bed, wringing his hands in his lap as he spoke. “I’m just…I’m gonna…take the foundation and concealer off. For my s-scars, I mean. You…you’re gonna see them. J-just, just promise me you won’t bolt. You won’t run out the door screaming or something.” Despite his fear, he chuckled at the comedic image, bending his head down, not wanting to meet Zach’s eyes.

“Chris, hey. I know about them, I won’t…” Zach chuckled at Chris’ choice of reaction. “I won’t run screaming, as you say. That’s too dramatic even for _me_.”

“Good to know.” A small smile lingered on the younger man’s lips. “In that case, I’ll, uh…” He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the bathroom. On a nod from Zach, he took off quicker than an Internet meme (not that he knew what that was, of course, he’d just _heard_ of them by way of Anton) to the bathroom. Meanwhile, in bed, Zach reached his bag, drawing out the Honoré Balzac book he was barely a third of the way through, trying to focus on the dense prose within instead of his gnawing apprehension about Chris’ scars. He knew the extent of the abuse, but he did not know the extent to which the younger man was physically scarred.

He found out, however, when Chris walked back into the room, sliding into the bed next to him. Zach chose that moment to close the book and put it down, sitting up and turning himself to face Chris, who was also sitting, but wearing an expression of confusion.

Zach lowered his hands, palms open. “May I?”

Swallowing, Chris nodded, shifting closer to Zach, who saw the true textures of Chris’ skin in the thin but clear lines criss-crossing it, amongst others. Tentatively, he reached up a hand, fingertips tracing them as Chris’ eyes closed. It was unclear to the older man whether Chris enjoyed the sensation of being touched this gently, was resisting flinching from it or was just putting up with it.

“Holy shit, Chris…”

“Ugly, aren’t they?” the younger man asked in a flat tone, which made Zach flinch instead.

“No. Not in the slightest.” Zach used the pads of two fingers to trace the area of one particularly large scar on Chris’ right cheek. “These aren’t the only ones, are there? I mean, there’s more.”

Chris nodded in response, jaw locked.

“You don’t want to show me them?”

Zach received a head shake in response.

“Okay then.” Zach dropped his hands to take those of Chris’, looking into those piercing eyes of his. “Listen to me, Chris. You are a beautiful man, inside and out, and you’re also a thousand times braver than I could ever be, especially for starting our relationship by telling me about what happened to you. In more detail than you’d previously told anyone, if I remember right?” He received a nod in response before continuing. “Don’t let anyone tell you different ever again.” He smiled, stroking the younger man’s cheek.

“‘S not true,” Chris mumbled, but that sounded half-hearted even from him.

“Yes. It. Is.” Zach emphasised each syllable. “You’re beautiful to me.”

“You’ve got a twisted perception of beauty then,” Chris muttered, but he was silenced by the other man’s lips.

~x~

Zach started awake in complete darkness. He couldn’t say what forced him into wakefulness, but it took him several minutes before he remembered he was at Chris’ apartment instead of his own.

He felt behind him, turning slowly as he did once he realised the space next to him was empty. The glowing numbers on the bedside clock read 3:32, and Zach wondered what Chris was doing.

Where he had gone, even.

He paused, listening for any movements in the apartment. Once again, it took a few minutes, but his ears picked up the sound of slurping. Hauling himself rather reluctantly out of the bed, shoving his glasses on his face and throwing on a T-shirt, he stepped out the bedroom door, clicking it quietly shut.

Seeing little slivers of light cut against the otherwise smooth, dark, blank wall, Zach followed them, tracing them to a shut kitchen door, outlined by the light from within. Cautiously, he reached for the door handle, pressing it down and opening it, instantly dazzled by the light.

“Zach?” a voice ventured.

So Chris _was_ in here.

“What ‘re you doing?” Zach grunted, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes.

“I went for a run,” Chris answered, as casually as anything.

“It’s three thirty a.m.!” Zach groaned, removing his hand from his eyes and taking a seat at the table, not waiting for Chris’ permission, if any. His eyes gradually readjusted to the glare and made out the outline of Chris, whose face was pale against the dark hoodie he was swathed in.

“So what are you doing awake?”

“I woke up. I don’t know why. Felt around, noticed you weren’t there, got curious.” Zach pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Why were you running at three thirty?”

“Three, actually,” Chris muttered.

“Whatever,” Zach grunted.

“Okay. You want the truth?” Chris exhaled deeply, running his tongue over his lips. “I wasn’t sleeping too good. I mean, I was sleeping, but…it was light. Lighter than normal. Like I was sleeping with one eye open. When I did go to sleep eventually, I…had a nightmare. R-Ray was in it…I woke up, I saw you, or the outline of you in my bed, and…you…” He swallowed. “You’re the same height, you have the same build as Ray. I…I freaked the fuck out and…I just…”

“You ran,” Zach finished quietly, tapping the table with the pads of his fingers. “Chris, can I be honest with you for a second?”

Chris nodded, jaw tight.

“I thought we were past this. This…” Zach made a motion that could almost be called ‘flailing’. “I’m not Ray, Chris. It’s been six months, I thought you’d – ”

“I know!” Chris suddenly growled angrily, cutting Zach off. “I know you’re not him. I know you won’t hurt me the ways he did. I just…I wasn’t fully conscious when I woke up, so I just saw your outline and…all my fear came back. That’s all it was.” He sighed, the temporary three a.m. anger dissipating.

Zach narrowed his eyes a fraction of a millimetre. “Wait.”

Chris outright frowned. “What?”

“What did you say?”

“I wasn’t fully conscious – ”

“No, not that. The first thing you said.”

“I know you’re not him and you won’t hurt me in the ways he did?”

Joy pooled in Zach’s stomach, manifesting itself in a slow grin across his face. “You know what this means?”

“…Holy fuck. Yes. I…I do.”

“You trust me,” Zach whispered.

“Huh?”

“You trust me,” he repeated, louder this time. “If not completely, then at least enough to realise that I’m not him.”

“I knew that anyway, Zach,” Chris said softly, eyes not leaving Zach’s face. “I just needed proof,”

“Have I supplied it?”

“In spades.”

Zach stretched out a hand across the table. “Then come back to bed?”

Chris smiled, putting his hand in Zach’s. “Absolutely. Kitchen tables are crazy uncomfortable to sleep on anyway.”

Laughing, the men stood up and retired to bed. Chris even slept in nothing but his underwear, showing Zach the rest of his scars. As was the case earlier, Zach didn’t run away screaming, but caressed and kissed them – without going too far, of course – as if they were precious artefacts (which, privately, Chris thought was overdoing it, but he didn’t mind being touched for once, so he wasn’t about to complain).

They spent the rest of the night, up until Chris' alarm went off, curled up tightly in each other’s arms, Zach’s breath tickling the back of Chris’ neck.


	16. Chapter 16

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Chris was leaning forward, eyes wide in disbelief and elbows on the table.

“I do not kid,” Karl said in a mock-deep voice, pulling a face that made him look a great candidate for the lead in a Judge Dredd film.

“How is that shit still going _on_ in the world?” Chris clenched and unclenched his hands – a sign, Zach knew, that he was trying to keep any anger under control.

Beside Karl, opposite Zach, Eric shrugged. “Beats me, mate. Really does.”

“Can I get you guys anything?” a waitress said, materialising rapidly at the table.

“Water for me,” Chris answered automatically.

“Can’t tempt you with anything stronger, mate?”

Zach watched Chris’ face carefully as he answered. For a moment, it seemed like the younger man was receding back into himself, but the even tone in his answer suggested otherwise. “I don’t drink,”

“At all?” Karl asked, eyes wide in disbelief.

“You’ve _never_ drank alcohol?” was the question Eric complemented Karl’s with.

Chris, mercifully, laughed. “I’ve drunk before. I just…” He ran his tongue over his lips.

“Didn’t enjoy the taste,” Zach dived in with, narrowing his eyes at the Australasian couple as if to say _drop it, boys_. “So he hasn’t since.”

From under the table, he felt a squeeze of thanks on his hand. Without looking, he turned it over, interlacing his and Chris’ fingers more than they were already.

“‘S fair, mate. Least you won’t get like Sheepshagger next to me – _Oof!_ ” Eric doubled over as he got a hard elbow in the side and an even harder glare from Karl.

Chris’ hand suddenly left Zach’s for a few minutes before nudging his elbow again.

“What?” Zach muttered, turning his head.

Chris’ eyes travelled downwards to where he had his phone surreptitiously in his hand, screen pointed towards Zach. It read: _Someone’s not getting his dick sucked tonight._

Zach snorted in laughter, turning it into choking when Eric and Karl gave them quizzical looks, Chris painfully bashing his boyfriend on the back to keep up the pretence.

~x~

“So what did you think?”

“Of them or the huge waves of sexual tension rolling off the couple?”

Zach considered this for a moment. “Either. Both.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Very straightforward, Quinto. I like it,”

“Easy on the sarcasm, Woody,” Zach retorted, grinning.

“ _Heeeey!_ ” Chris swiped at Zach, laughing. “They’re great. Totally fucking each other’s brains out whenever they’re in a space of minimum four walls, but wonderful guys. I’m glad you convinced me tonight,”

“Not without compromise,” Zach purred as he shut the door. A grin played about Chris’ lips as he knew what was coming. Although he still wasn’t ready for full-blown sex, he and Zach had steadily worked their way up over the last few months – since they started sleeping next to each other – by hand and blowjobs. Often, it was a literal combination, especially since Chris had realised, by the range of sounds he’d coaxed out of Zach and by explicit confirmation, that he exercised his lips and tongue very well in that department.

“Okay. Hand, mouth or both?”

Zach smirked. “That I’m leaving up to you.”

Chris mock-huffed, folding his arms. “C’mon, I know I promised you _something_ in exchange for this double date.” He dropped his voice to a playful purr, giving Zach the full benefit of his bedroom eyes. “You’re in charge, sir. You have the option. Hands or mouth?”

Of all that, it was the title that went straight between Zach’s hips and he gave an involuntary thrust. With a wicked chuckle, Chris ran straight to bedroom, Zach giving chase and Noah barking from the sitting room.


	17. Chapter 17

“Is…that the last one?” Zach grunted, releasing the box on the floor, straightening up and massaging his lower back as he did.

“Should be.” Chris disappeared out the door for a while, leaving Zach standing in the middle of a room that had suddenly turned into a hybrid of boxes and furniture. He was glad Noah was with someone else during the process of carrying the marked boxes into the house, and he was glad to have several people help at various points during the day.

However, even the long haul of the day couldn’t dim the excitement rushing through the very core of his being. Although they’d only been dating a little over a year and a half and a little under two years, they were finally taking the plunge and moving in together.

Distracted by the thought of how much work they’d have to do to decorate the apartment, Zach didn’t realise Chris was massaging his lower back until he felt the younger man’s  chin on his shoulder.

“Thanks, baby.”

The whisper was husky, low, holding a whole speech and a thousand meanings in two words. _Thank you for taking a chance on me. Thank you for agreeing to live with me. Thank you for your patience, your time and your love._

Zach smiled. “No problem,” he replied to all the gratitudes. “None at all.”

~x~

**_Several hours later_ **

“ _Hooooooooly_ _shiiiiit_ …”

It was Chris’ turn to stretch and yawn as the now-empty cardboard box was dismantled and stuffed away in case it was needed again in the future (Chris’ words precisely). The couple still had a lot more to unpack, but for now, they had a bed to sleep on, coffee to drink, clothes to wear and products to maintain hygiene (and hair, in the cases of both men).

“I know.” Zach embraced Chris tightly. “Just ordered Domino’s, should be here soon. Anything else you wanna do?”

“Sleeeep,” Chris replied in a robotic monotone, muffled by Zach’s shoulder.

“Well, we’ve got a kettle, we’ve got beans, we’ve got a small carton of milk. What say you to some coffee?”

Chris lifted his head, eyes bleary. “I say thee yay,”

“Go sit down, I’ll get this.” Chuckling, Zach squeezed him again before going to the kettle to fill it up.

~x~

“Ooh, I have a thingy. Idea,” Chris suddenly piped up through his last mouthful of Mighty Meaty, now wide awake after three coffees in a row.

“Oh?” Zach mumbled back through his Vegetarian Supreme slice.

“Remember I bought new sheets for the bed earlier today?”

Zach frowned, searching his memory before hitting it. “Oh. Yes? What about them?”

“I was thinking…if you’re not too tired, that is…we could christen them tonight.”

Zach almost choked.

Chris frowned. “You alright?”

“‘M fine.” Zach swallowed, clearing his mouth. “I just didn’t expect you to come out with _that_ , that’s all!” He angled himself towards the brunette at his side. “Usual hand-or-mouth?”

Chris bit his lip, suddenly hesitant.  “Uh…I was thinking…all the way,” he replied in a quiet voice.

Zach was still for several minutes. “All the way?” he repeated.

“Like I said, uh…t-tha… if you want. I mean – ”

He was silenced by his boyfriend’s lips mashing against his, breathing sweetcorn, onions, peppers and mushrooms into Chris’ meatball-tasting mouth. Chris responded eagerly, picking up the answer in the way Zach’s lips and tongue moved against his own, tongue flicking occasionally, causing a shudder down the younger man.

“That is,” Zach gasped when the two eventually broke apart, pupils huge with lust, “if _you_ want, if you feel you’re ready,”

Chris swallowed, throat dry in anticipation. “I want to. I want _you_.”

It was all Zach could do not to tear Chris’ clothes off there and then, the emphasis on ‘you’ redirecting his blood flow. He settled for launching another assault on the easily-breached area of Chris’ Mouth instead.

~x~

“D’you want me to –” _Kiss. “_ – tell you what I’m doing as I – ” _Kiss._ “– as I’m doing it?”

“Only – _uhh_ – if I ask.” Chris was thoroughly unable to give a more coherent answer than that.

“‘Kay.” Zach continued his oral quest all over Chris’ fully naked, pleasingly-contoured body, dick almost painfully hard with anticipation and lust. Chris groaned and bucked beneath the older man, arching forwards and pressing back against the mattress as Zach’s tongue outlined his muscles and belly button. Zach, Chris was learning, seemed to have a bit of a fetish for Chris’ belly button.

The older man’s mouth travelled lower, lower until, caressing Chris’ steel-hard dick and still-unattended balls, he reached the puckered rim of flesh below. Without any prior warning, he flicked at it with the tip of his tongue, eliciting the loudest groans he’d heard from Chris _ever_.

Zach raised his head to meet the lust-filled eyes of the man spread out before him, uttering a wicked chuckle. “Like that?”

“ _Like_ that?” Chris panted, throwing his head back against the pillow. “More. _More_ , please,”

“Patience,” Zach told him smoothly, kissing the insides of the other man’s thighs before plunging straight in, tongue boring into Chris’ anus. The younger man seemed to have a fit, writhing, gripping the sheets and groaning so loud Zach briefly wondered if the neighbours would come knocking.

“Zaaaaach, _please_ …”

Zach withdrew his tongue and raised his head once more. “Yes, Chris? Please what?”

“Fuck me,”

Zach cocked his head and cupped a hand to his ear, thoroughly enjoying the power he was being given. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that…”

Chris sat bolt upright, shoulders heaving, voice growling the next command. “Fuck. Me. _Now_.”

Zach placated the other man back down on the mattress with kisses. “As you wish. One second.”

“Not too long, _please_!”

Zach dived for the sizeable bag he knew held the lubricant and condoms. Grabbing the first, he headed back to the patch of mattress between Chris’ legs – his new favourite place, he had decided – and, slathering his fingers in the slippery stuff, inserted one slowly into the younger man, who whined in response.

“Ohh, baby,” Zach breathed as he inserted a second finger, scissoring Chris, his throat having left his brain for his dick, “you have no idea. None whatsoever,”

“Unnngh, stop talking and _ohh fuck fuck…_ ”

 _No._ You _stop talking._ Zach straightened his fingers, away from Chris’ prostate. “Think you can take a third finger?”

“Think two’s enough. F’ now,” Chris gasped, his proximity to the precipice evident in his voice.

“Okay.” Zach dived again for the condoms, smoothing one over his rock-hard member with shaking hands and covering that, in turn, with more lubricant.

“You going in?” Chris rasped.

Zach positioned himself, one hand on his dick, the other on the mattress at Chris’ side. “I am now.”

Chris raised his legs as high as he could, easing access for Zach as he entered the younger man slowly; almost painfully so. Moving his hand to the other side of Chris, he dragged his gaze up to his face, which was a picture of wordless bliss.

“Oh God, baby,” Zach breathed, his throat still voicing his dick’s thoughts, “you look so _beautiful_ split open like this. Trust me.”

“I do.” Chris’s face flickered as his hole stretched more to accommodate Zach, the familiar yet unfamiliar sensation soon becoming comfortable…pleasurable, even.

Zach pressed himself against Chris as much as he could, wanting to hold on to this, to give Chris more than simply the best he could. Chris’ hands didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves, clutching at Zach’s arms, Zach’s back and the headboard at the highest points of ecstasy. His lips found Zach’s and mashed them against those of the other man, almost desperately so, even as Zach’s hand wandered to Chris’ dick, stroking and encouraging it as much as Zach had done to Chris over the last twenty months.

Zach groaned and pressed his face to the place where Chris’ shoulder met his neck, sucking gently on it, continuing to bury himself in the younger man, whose grasps were steadily becoming scratches; whose groans were becoming louder, forming words, forming names.

“Zach – _uuhhh…_ ”

“How ‘s it feel, Chris?” Zach breathed. “Feel good?”

“More than that. _Uh_ , so, so much more than,”

Zach stopped sucking on that smooth patch of skin, the pad of his thumb rotating on the head of Chris’ dick, eliciting staccato breaths from the other man. In response, Chris wrapped his long legs around Zach’s arse and pulled him in all the way.

“ _Faster!_ ” he commanded breathlessly, the word breaking in a whine, and Zach complied, thrusting hard, knowing he was close, knowing they were both close, feeling the white light build up from the pit of his stomach, drawing his balls into an intense tightness he hadn’t felt months, and _and –_

It was Chris’ muffled cry, lost in Zach’s shoulder, which sent Zach over the edge more than anything, the white light reaching his vision and short-circuiting his brain as he released himself deep into Chris.

“Holy shit. Holy…uhh…” Chris lost coherency as aftershocks rippled through the pair, holding onto each other for all they were worth.  Eventually, he uncurled, letting Zach pull out and depositing the condom before the pair of them slid into bed.

Chris frowned. “You’re covered in my – ”

“I know.” Zach gave a dismissive shrug. “Hey. These are _our_ sheets, remember? We don’t have to worry about that anymore. We could soil ‘em black and nobody would give a fuck,”

“We still have to sleep in them, though,” Chris pointed out, a secret thrill running through him at the use of ‘we’.

“True. Hey, c’mere.” Zach extended an arm above Chris’ head, inviting him for a cuddle.

Chris obligingly scooted over, curling up against Zach. “Was I…okay tonight?”

“Okay?” Zach echoed, kissing the top of his head. “Chris, you were amazing. You short-circuited my brain tonight. Took me a few minutes to get back.”

“Still getting back, by the omission of ‘it’,” Chris teased, poking Zach in the stomach, laughing as he wriggled.

Zach chuckled back. “I love you, you know that?”

Chris looked up, eyes meeting Zach’s. “You…you love me?”

Zach nodded, tone gently teasing. “Of course I do, silly. I wouldn’t have asked you to move in with me if I didn’t,”

Chris didn’t seem to hear this, his face relaxing into a beaming grin that lit up his face. “I love you too, Zach. I love you too.”

The men kissed each other hard, sliding further down under the bed as they did. Wrapping themselves around each other, they went to sleep, foreheads touching, exhausted from the day.

In the kitchen, the moonlight lit on a singular, small vase containing nothing but two celandine-poppies in full bloom, facing the window, the moonlight, and all the sadness and joys to come in the future.

**_X~The End~X_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all! Thanks so much to everyone who's read, subbed, kudos'd and/ or commented. I'm genuinely touched by the attention my fic has gotten. :3 ~Mika


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